1 in 61 pregnant women at work were pressured by their boss to have an abortion, new research has found. “It would be better for your career if you just brought a coat hanger”, one mother was told.
The study, commissioned by Pregnant Then Screwed, reports that over half of surveyed women (51%) experienced some manner of anti-mother discrimination while pregnant, while on maternity, or after returning to work.
The findings come from a sample of 3,540 parents, including 1,735 women, selected from a broader pool of 24,193 survey respondents.
73% of women also reported that a colleague made hurtful comments about their pregnancy or maternity leave.
7% of women lost a job because of sacking, redundancy, safety issues, ill health or inflexible working conditions.
The “State of the Nation” survey estimates that 41,752 pregnant women or mothers are sacked or lose their jobs every year in the UK.
Responding to the survey findings, Joeli Brearley, the CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said: “There is absolutely no excuse for bosses, who hold the power, to tell their employee to abort a pregnancy. It is sex discrimination and it is inhumane.”
Last year, a poll commissioned by the BBC found that 15% of British women surveyed had been pressured in some way into at least one abortion.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “Pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is widespread and goes hand in hand with abortion, placing women under further pressure, implicitly or explicitly, to abort a child.
“SPUC has reported on numerous cases of mothers who were pressured to abort a child, or subjected to an anti-family, anti-child work culture making them choose between motherhood or career.
“This study, which only reports on mothers told directly to abort children, is merely the tip of the iceberg. An invidious anti-motherhood ethic is at work at almost every level of society in the UK, which abortion serves and makes worse.
“Reports such as this expose the lie that abortion is about choice. It clearly isn’t.”
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