County Council
43 of 49 speakers urged support for paid parental leave.
Forty-nine people spoke during public comment with 43 being in favor of paid leave. Many cited the need for birth mothers to physically heal and for both parents to bond with the baby. Some of those who spoke in favor recalled painful experiences during and after childbirth. Opponents cited financial concerns for small businesses.
Written by Amy Whipple
Forty-nine people participated in public comment during the Oct. 20 meeting with 43 of them in favor of paid parental leave.
None of six people who spoke in opposition to the bill was against paid parental leave as a concept. Rather, they objected to the financial burden placed on small businesses.
John Graf spoke on behalf of himself and other small business owners. He said, “What [small business owners] can’t have is an unfunded mandate that comes down and it treats your local community pizza shop the same as it treats PNC Bank. It’s not the same.”
Many of the people in favor of paid leave who spoke during the meeting shared their personal experiences of the early months after the birth of their child. Some said they were lucky to have had paid leave and were able to have time to heal from childbirth as well as bond with their babies.
Others, however, did not have the same opportunity.
Miranda Cornman, a single mother whose six-year-old son stood with her at the podium, said, “I was unable to take maternity leave because it was unpaid. I used my PTO and my sick days, and I got two weeks home with him, and I had to go back to work. We have a trauma bond between us because we didn’t get that time together.”
Amirah Alzahrani addressed the legislation’s inclusion of stillbirth with a picture of her son who died while Alzahrani was in labor. “The cruelty of having a postpartum body without the baby that made it so is excruciating,” she said. Her husband was able to take three weeks off of work, but it wasn’t enough time to help care for Alzahrani’s medical complications from trying to deliver her son or for the two of them to grieve their loss.
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