Is punishing Ky. women pro-life?

The booby prize for petty partisanship in this legislative session goes to Rep. Kim King, R-Harrodsburg, whose anti-abortion poison-pill is bottling up a Democratic-sponsored protection for pregnant women that many pro-life groups support.

King’s amendment serves a useful purpose, though, by helping clarify that the onslaught of attacks on reproductive rights stems not so much from concern for children or women, despite politicians’ insistence that they must protect Kentucky women from their own decisions. What’s driving this train is an age-old urge to punish women.

If you doubt it, consider the rough treatment afforded House Bill 18, sponsored by Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, and five other House Democrats, including Rep. George Brown Jr. of Lexington. The bill entitles a woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding to “reasonable accommodation” on the job.

Kentucky already extends this protection to the disabled and religously observant. Even smokers are protected workers in Kentucky law. It should hardly be a stretch then to temporarily reassign a pregnant employee to a less strenuous task or provide her time off to give birth or a private place to express breast milk.

If even those accommodations would impose an undue expense or hardship on an employer, HB 18 waives the requirement. No wonder it won unanimous House approval last year.

Anti-abortion groups support laws that enable women to keep working through pregnancy because women who can support themselves and their families are less likely to end a pregnancy.

Sixty percent of American women having an abortion already have a child, and more than 30 percent have two or more children. Three-fourths of women who decide to end a pregnancy say they cannot afford a child, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The stresses of growing up in poverty can do profound harm, including physically changing a child’s brain.

In 2014, Americans United for Life filed a brief for 23 “pro-life organizations” in an appeal by a UPS driver who was denied “light duty” and put on unpaid leave while pregnant after her doctor advised against lifting more than 20 pounds. The brief put the anti-abortion groups on the same side as pro-choice advocates.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that UPS had violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by treating Peggy Young differently than employees who had received accommodations after being injured on the job or losing a driver’s license for drunken driving.

In Kentucky, a Florence police officer, Lyndi Trischler, was forced onto unpaid leave after being denied desk duty as her pregnancy progressed in 2014. Born with a genetic disorder, her baby died; Trischler returned to work determined to help bring about fairer treatment.

But HB 118 and its protections for pregnant women on the job will die without so much as a floor vote, unless King withdraws her amendment.

House Democrats in this session already have approved and Gov. Matt Bevin has signed a Senate bill that creates a major new barrier for rural and low-income women seeking to end a pregnancy. Bevin’s administration expanded its bureaucratic harassment of abortion providers from Louisville to Lexington on Thursday. And in the Republican-controlled Senate, a male-only committee keeps churning out new restrictions on abortion.

In the Democratic House, it’s common for Republicans to doom bills protecting the interests of children by gumming them up with anti-abortion amendments. King’s amendment substitutes the legislature’s expertise for not only that of a doctor performing an abortion but for the entire discipline of obstetrics.

We respect Kentuckians whose opposition to abortion stems from sincere convictions. Less credible are politicians who want government to keep its hands off everything except the 30 percent of American women, almost 4,000 a year in Kentucky, who choose abortion.

Both sides of the abortion debate can team up in Washington to protect pregnant women on the job. But in Kentucky, where 1 in 5 working-age women and 1 in 4 children live in poverty, anti-abortion politics is denying mothers and their babies even this modest protection.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Is punishing Ky. women pro-life?."