Terminating an Employee During Maternity Leave Is Not Just Wrong — It’s Morally Indefensible
Bringing a new life into the world is one of the most profound and vulnerable moments in a person’s life. For working parents — especially birthing mothers — it’s also a time of physical recovery, emotional adjustment, and significant financial strain. That’s why policies like paid maternity leave exist in the first place: to ensure stability during a critical moment for a family.
The United States may not require employers to offer paid or even job-protected maternity leave in many cases — but just because something is legal doesn’t make it ethical. A lack of federal protections does not excuse individual employers from doing the right thing.
And yet, despite this, people are still being terminated while on maternity leave.
Let’s be very clear: laying off or terminating an employee during maternity leave is not only morally wrong — it is fundamentally inhumane.
And in many cases, it may also be illegal. It could also be a strong sign that other illegal sex discrimination is happening at an organization.
Why It’s Ethically Indefensible to Terminate an Employee During Their Maternity Leave
1. It disproportionately harms women and perpetuates sex discrimination. Firing someone on or shortly after maternity leave sends a message: that pregnancy and parenthood are liabilities in the workplace. This isn’t just a moral issue — it’s a matter of systemic gender inequality. Women who choose to have children should not have to fear for their careers or financial futures simply because they exercised a basic human right.
2. The timing weaponizes vulnerability. Recovering from childbirth, especially if complications arise, is physically and emotionally taxing. Add the stress of suddenly losing your job, income, and health insurance, and it becomes a crisis. This isn’t a moment when someone can “bounce back” or “hit the job market running.” It’s a moment for compassion, not cost-cutting.
3. Healthcare is not optional — especially for new parents and newborns. When a parent loses their job during leave, they often lose employer-sponsored health insurance too. That means no postpartum care. No pediatric coverage for their newborn. No security. For families already on tight budgets or dealing with medical complications, this can have devastating consequences. A newborn deserves uninterrupted access to healthcare. Period.
4. It violates the trust and dignity of employees. Maternity leave is not a vacation, it’s a medical recovery period. It’s a time to bond with a newborn. To terminate someone in this window of vulnerability erodes trust between employers and employees. It tells an employer’s remaining workforce: you are expendable, even at your most fragile. And, that message is not just unkind…it’s toxic.
The Law Sets the Floor, Not the Standard
Yes, there are labor laws in many places designed to protect workers from being fired during protected leave. But too often, employers find technicalities, manipulate timing, or mask discriminatory behavior as budget cuts or “restructuring.” They do just enough to stay on the right side of the law, but far too little to stay on the right side of morality.
Legal or not, terminating someone during maternity leave is a choice — and it’s one that speaks volumes about an organization’s values.
Terminating Employees During Maternity Leave Signals Larger Discrimination Problems
Organizations that terminate employees during or after maternity leave are rarely engaging in a one-off bad decision. More often than not, this kind of behavior is a red flag for a deeper, more pervasive pattern of gender or sex discrimination in an organization.
Workplaces that terminate employees during their maternity leave often also include:
Pregnancy discrimination, such as reducing responsibilities, withholding opportunities, or pushing employees out after pregnancy disclosure.
Hostile leadership culture, where inappropriate comments, objectification, or gender-based assumptions go unchecked.
Sexual harassment by those in power, who use their position to blur boundaries or retaliate against those who push back.
Once this pattern is established — especially if leadership is involved — it’s only a matter of time before legal, reputational, or financial consequences follow. And rightly so.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), pregnancy discrimination complaints rose by over 65% between 1997 and 2011, with thousands of new cases filed each year since.¹
Likewise, many high-profile lawsuits over the last decade — against major corporations, media organizations, and nonprofits — began with isolated instances like wrongful maternity terminations, only to reveal entrenched cultures of sexism and retaliation. When women come forward with these stories, the truth eventually rises — often alongside hard evidence.
As Harvard Business Review notes, corporate tolerance of gender bias and harassment is most visible in how companies handle power imbalances — and failure to act ethically can destroy credibility and talent retention.²
In short: as the employer, you might think you’re covering your tracks, but you’re not. Employees talk. Paper trails exist. Lawsuits are filed. Journalists investigate. Donors walk away. Boards wake up.
And when the moment comes, no crisis public relations firm can undo a leadership culture that enabled discrimination and other morally wrong behaviors to take root.
What Employers Should Do Instead
Honor their commitments. If you tell an employee they have a certain amount of leave — paid or unpaid — you are morally and ethically bound to uphold it. Full stop.
Do not terminate someone while they are recovering from childbirth or caring for a newborn. If you think your organization’s priorities justify that kind of harm, you need to reevaluate your values (and ask yourself how you sleep at night).
If a layoff is truly unavoidable, lead with empathy. That means offering generous severance, continued employer-paid health and dental insurance, and transparent, humane communication.
Acknowledge the harm you’ve caused. If you make the decision to terminate a parent during or immediately following maternity leave, you must take responsibility for the damage to their health, livelihood, and family. Apologize. Offer support. Don’t be a coward and hide behind policy or silence.
Be prepared to suffer the consequences. If you do this to someone, expect that they may sue you. Expect that they may speak publicly. And when they do, do not retaliate or further harm them. If you’ve made your choice, you must live with the legal, reputational, and moral fallout. That’s not “unprofessional,” it’s accountability.
Stop treating parenthood as a threat. Motherhood is not a liability. It’s a reality. If your systems can’t handle that, it’s not the parents who need to change — it’s your systems.
When an employer chooses to terminate someone on maternity leave, they’re not just making a staffing decision. They’re making a statement about whose lives, health, and dignity matter. And far too often, that decision is made without accountability.
It’s time to stop treating parenthood — especially motherhood — as a professional inconvenience. It’s time to start leading with humanity.
Because the way a workplace treats someone during one of the most vulnerable chapters of their life doesn’t just reveal the organization’s culture — it defines it.
Sources:
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Pregnancy Discrimination
Harvard Business Review, “Why Sexual Harassment Is Still Rampant — and How to Stop It,” HBR.org
This article was originally published on LinkedIn and is also published on Medium.