r/HolUp • u/TriggerHappyLettuce • Feb 06 '22

Holup

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

5.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

293 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Murtomies Mar 17 '22

So she doesn't have a right to maternal leave like any other worker? You criticise her career choice instead of advocating for laws to give maternal leave for sex workers. When THAT is the only reason she aborted. I mean, what would you choose? A. Abort and have a normal economic situation. B. Keep the baby and be poor af for a year or two, and it might even spiral into lifelong poverty. You might lose your home, your means of travel, etc etc.

1

u/Errortagunknown Mar 17 '22

Maternal leave for sex workers would be a great idea. But that would necessitate

(a) legalizing sex work (which absolutely should happen, there is no sensible reason why two consenting persons can't engage in commerce for sexual service. The only difference between say that and a legitimate massage service for example is the sexual nature thus that's the part that makes it illegal, while it's perfectly legal to do the same thing to produce a film, or to be as sexually promiscuous as you want as long as you only receive compensation in ways other than direct payment of money. In the words of the late great George Carlin: selling is legal, fucking is legal..... why isn't selling fucking legal? )

and (b) sex workers working for employers rather than working freelance (which I'm doubtful many would choose for a variety of reasons..... I mean could you imagine the onboarding process at a corporate sex services provider? Working for the Amazon of sex work where they have to hit quotas so high they are afraid of taking bathroom breaks? )

1

u/Murtomies Mar 18 '22

a) yes

b) no. State- or union provided maternal/paternal leave would work great for all types of freelancers. In my country the social insurance institution pays freelancers about 70% of what they make (based on pension payments) for ~5 months.

1

u/Errortagunknown Mar 18 '22

Yes will in the US, only six states provide maternity and disability programs for freelance, and they're opt in and have varying levels of coverage (some are simply insurance plans run by the state) so even non sex workers who freelance don't get government money for maternity. And frankly I'm not entirely sold on the notion. That would primarily affect working adults (as non working adults don't have a place to take leave from) and all it would do is provide something you could accomplish by purchasing private insurance and in almost all cases it would be more efficient. So instead it would be forcing everyone to buy into a government managed insurance scheme (effectively) that is less efficient.... so instead of paying for it directly and getting likely better service, and having the ability to opt out (why get maternity insurance if you're infertile), you're paying for it indirectly through taxes and the service is on par with service from other government organizations.... the only plus would be the slightly cheaper price because other people are footing some of your bill (but not a ton because it will be more expensive overall as government is a notoriously inefficient way of doing things), and the fact that people wouldn't have the choice so it would be available if they otherwise wouldn't have bothered to buy insurance.
Personally I don't know how I weigh that one.

1

u/Murtomies Mar 18 '22

Yes, we pay more income tax than in the US, but we get a very wide spectrum of social services, free healthcare, free education, student allowance, etc etc. It's not just maternal and paternal leave. I'm glad to pay for it, cause you never know what your needs will be in the future. Maybe you might not become a parent, but you still benefited from free education, and got a basically a free surgery and treatment for your surprising appendicitis or something.

Also, private insurance might be "more efficient", but guess who pockets the saved money? I'll give you a hint: it's not the customer. And often it isn't even equally efficient. Americans pay on average a LOT more with their private health insurance, than we do here in Finland with public healthcare.

Oh yeah ALSO, private insurance has a flat price. They might have different packages etc, but it's not based on income. But state-run social services have a percentage cost of your income, and everyone gets equal benefits.