As of this Thursday, June 1, three new rights for women come into force: the prenatal rest period, the specific temporary disability due to painful menstruation and the leave due to abortion, as indicated by the new law on sexual and reproductive health and of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, which went ahead with the opposition of PP and Vox.
In this way, pregnant women will be entitled to paid leave from the first day of the 39th week of gestation until delivery. Social Security will be in charge of assuming all expenses, except those of the first day, which will be paid by the company.
Regarding leave for painful periods, it will be the State who pays for them and the medical professional who indicates the duration of the disability. The law, which aims to regulate this situation “in order to eliminate any type of negative bias in the workplace”, will take into account “cases of secondary disabling menstruation or secondary dysmenorrhea associated with pathologies such as endometriosis, fibroids, pelvic inflammatory disease, adenomyosis, endometrial polyps, polycystic ovaries”. It also contemplates symptoms such as “dyspareunia, dysuria, infertility, or more abundant bleeding than normal, among others.
Women may also request leave from work when they suffer a termination of pregnancy, whether voluntary or not. In this case, it will also be the doctor who determines the duration, and all workers will be able to take advantage of it, without minimum contributions.
Likewise, the norm also includes free menstrual management products in educational centres, in situations where it is necessary, as well as in prisons and social centres so that women in vulnerable situations can access them.
Last Thursday, the Secretary of State for Equality, Ángela Rodríguez, assured that “almost no government of the autonomous communities is correctly implementing the abortion law”, for which she reminded the different regions that they must comply with the norm, given that the voluntary interruption of pregnancy “is a constitutional right,” she said in an intervention on Canal Red. Rodríguez specifically criticised the situation in Castilla la Mancha, where, in her words, all the voluntary interruptions of pregnancy in the last year have been carried out in private clinics.
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