NEW ZEALAND: In a bid to tackle a ‘taboo’ subject, New Zealand’s parliament has unanimously approved a bill giving mothers and their partners three days of paid leave following miscarriages.
Labour MP Ginny Andersen, who tabled the bill, said it would permit parents to come to terms with their loss without being forced to use up their sick leave entitlements.
Ginny Andersen further said, “The grief that comes with miscarriage is not a sickness. It is a loss that takes time to recover physically and mentally with a partner,” she added.
Andersen said, “Final reading of my Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage Bill. This is a Bill about workers’ rights and fairness. I hope it gives people time to grieve and promotes greater openness about miscarriage. We should not be fearful of our bodies,” she tweeted.
Final reading of my Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage Bill. This is a Bill about workers’ rights and fairness. I hope it gives people time to grieve and promotes greater openness about miscarriage. We should not be fearful of our bodies. pic.twitter.com/dwUWINVjLm
— Ginny Andersen (@ginnyandersen) March 24, 2021
The legislation also applies to parents, their partners, and parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy. Anderson paid tribute to Dunedin writer Kathryn Van Beek, who had approached her local MP after experiencing a miscarriage and pushed for a law change.
“A miscarriage is a strange, secret birth that is also a death,” Beek wrote at the time.
Green MP Jan Logie said the bill would go some way toward breaking down the taboo and silence that many women still endure after losing a pregnancy.
“That silence that has caused so much harm has, in part, started to be broken by this debate and by parliament’s attention,” Logie said. She said that one in four New Zealand women have had a miscarriage, and around 20,000 women lose a pregnancy through miscarriage or stillbirth every year.
“It is an incredibly normal experience, but normally doesn’t mean easy; it doesn’t mean without pain, she said. Although we have for a long time, through silence and stigma, forced women – primarily women – into actually just pretending as if it hasn’t happened,” she said.
However, the bill does not apply to women who end a pregnancy through abortion. National MP Erica Stanford said that while she supported the bill, “the grief and anguish and trauma experienced during an abortion and the fact that it’s not included in this bill makes me uncomfortable personally uncomfortable”.
Nice to meet you @KathrynvanBeek and change the law for the better – Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage. pic.twitter.com/7nToRbTRvj
— Ginny Andersen (@ginnyandersen) March 25, 2021
