Paid Maternity Leave Should Be A Basic Right, Obama Says

The United States must join the rest of the industrialized world and mandate paid maternity leave, President Obama declared this week at a meeting on working families.

In remarks at the White House Summit on Working Families, Obama said that the United States most follow in the footsteps of countries like France that allow women to leave work to give birth while still receiving pay.

“Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth — now that’s a pretty low bar,” Obama said. “That, we should be able to take care of.”

The United States trails much of the industrialized world when it comes to maternity leave. Canada offers mothers up to 17 weeks of paid leave, which they can use either before or after their due date. The two parents can take a combined 37 weeks of parental leave.

In France, women get 16 weeks of paid maternity leave for either of their first two children and up to 26 for the third child.

The summit is intended to draw attention to the issues facing women, and even called on Mad Men star Christina Hendricks to add star power to the event.

The idea of paid maternity leave has been a contentious issue in the United States, with a number of companies attracting attention for mom-unfriendly policies. In one recent case, a pregnant woman in San Jose, California, was forced to take her maternity leave by employer Pier 1 before her baby was born.

The woman filed a class action lawsuit last month trying to force Pier 1 to comply with California law.

“It’s shocking,” the pregnant woman said in a Los Angeles Times interview. “They are having me exhaust all my leave before I need that leave. This is stressful financially and emotionally.”

President Obama pointed to several states leading the way on paid maternity leave, including California, Rhode Island and New Jersey for creating a state benefit. Obama himself has followed through, instituting six weeks of leave for White House employees when they have a child, get sick or injured, or need to care for a sick family member.

“There is only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave, and that is us,” Obama said. “And that is not the list you want to be on — on your lonesome. It’s time to change that.”

The White House is also backing legislation that would institute paid maternity leave, but it not passed through Congress yet.