The View's Meghan McCain knocks the GOP for claiming to be pro-family but not supporting maternity leave
"The View's" Meghan McCain returned from maternity leave on Monday with a whole new perspective on paid family leave.
While women have spent decades advocating for a federal program allowing women to have paid family leave, conservatives have denied such a program, despite claiming to be the pro-family party.
Sunny Hostin noted that when she was a prosecutor that she was forced to borrow her leave from others.
"We have been talking a lot and texting a lot, and one thing that Meghan and I have been talking so much about is the lack of paid maternity leave because I remember when I was a prosecutor, there was no paid maternity leave, and that was almost 20 years ago, and other prosecutors donated leave to me to a 'leave bank' so I could spend time with Gabriel when he was born."
"When I gave birth, I actually had post-natal pre-eclampsia and I was in the hospital on a magnesium drip, and it kicked my butt," McCain revealed. "I was planning on coming back to the show after the election. I was physically unable to. I was unable to come. I was having -- as any woman who's experienced anything like that -- I had to have my husband and mother-in-law help me do everything from shower to eat and it was deeply humbling."
She confessed that she was privileged to have the kind of maternity leave that she needed when most women barely get any leave at all.
"And as I thought about it, the angrier I got that there weren't women in the rest of America that have the same kind of luxury that I had working here at 'The View,' and then I started getting more and more angry (sic) that conservatives, in particular, given that we are the party of family values and that everything about our ideology sort of stems from the nucleus of the family that we are leaving women in this country without the capacity and ability unless you have an employer that allows you to, to have a child and heal physically."
She confessed that she now feels "a lot of synergy" for demands from Democrats for paid family leave and she wants her team at The View to help push for legislation to help get it done. For many Democrats, it didn't take becoming a mother to realize how important becoming a parent is.
Joy Behar noted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans have opposed such a bill for decades and Democrats have been advocating for it. Whoopi Goldberg mentioned that it was a major policy demand from Hillary Clinton in the 1990s that Republicans opposed overwhelmingly.
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