The Economist on the Pro-Life Brief Supporting Pregnant Women

The Economist's Democracy in America column notes the Supreme Court brief from 23 pro-life organizations (my previous post is here) supporting pregnancy-discrimination plaintiffs:

ACTIVISTS on warring sides of the abortion debate rarely take the same position when it comes to Supreme Court cases involving women’s rights. But pro-choicers and pro-lifers have found common cause in Young v United Parcel Service, a pregnancy discrimination case the justices will take up on December 3rd. . . .

For the liberal women’s rights organisations, the question is one of gender equality. Workers like Ms Young, they say, have a legal right to the same kinds of accommodations that companies offer to employees unaffected by a pregnancy. For pro-life groups, there is an added dimension: women facing inflexible bosses tend to consider abortion. The amicus brief from 23 pro-life organisations quotes Senator Harrison Williams, an architect of the PDA who died in 2001. “One of our basic purposes in introducing this bill,” he had said, “is to prevent the tragedy of needless, and unwanted abortions forced upon a woman because she cannot afford to leave her job without pay to carry out the full term of her pregnancy.”