Iowa SF375

Here is the bill: SF 375

“Proposed legislation would grant Iowa’s adoptive parents the same workplace protections biological parents currently receive.

The bill, passed by a Senate committee Monday, would require employers to allow adoptive parents to take time off of work without fear of repercussion to handle the adoption process and to spend time with their child after the adoption is completed.

“It’s a common sense piece of legislation giving adoptive mothers the same parity and benefits as birth mothers,” said Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, who sponsored the bill. “For those of you who support families and pro-life legislation, adoption is a good process for both the adoptive parent and for the parent that chooses to give their child up for adoption. So we want to do all we can to support this in the state of Iowa.”

The legislation says that an employee can’t be terminated for taking time off to participate in an adoption process.

Their absence should be treated as a temporary disability under the company’s health insurance, temporary disability insurance or sick leave plan, the bill states. Iowa state law says pregnancy is also regarded as a temporary disability.

However, some take issue with that classification.

Pregnancy comes with actual physical impairments, said Nicole Crain, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. Being an adoptive parent is not a physical condition, she said.

She said her organization doesn’t disagree with the intent of the bill, but she said classifying adopting parents as temporarily disabled changes the Civil Rights Code. She said a better place for the law might be in the code’s labor section or in a section focused on adoption.

“I think one thing is what’s next?” she said. “If you add adoption as a disability, what else could you add? And what additional requirements would employers eventually have to comply with and pay for?”

A House committee also was set to consider the bill Monday, but leadership chose not to bring it up for discussion.

Because a version of the bill has passed through a Senate committee, the legislation will survive “funnel week” — the deadline by which legislation must advance out of committee in order to be considered during the rest of the session.”

Bill would allow adopting parents to take leave from work[Des Moines Register 3/2/15 by  Brianne Pfannenstiel]

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