THE MODERN egalitarian State does not imprison people who defy the official religion of equality. But it does impose severe punishments. These penalties are often so onerous and so pervasive in their effect on ordinary freedoms that it is fair to call them totalitarian.

Take the issue of pregnancy. Everyone knows that a pregnant woman is not the same as a man or as the woman who is not pregnant. As workers, pregnant women are, at least temporarily, less productive than the non-pregnant. No one delivers a baby at work. Pregnancy almost always ends in motherhood, which, at the very least, brings occasional disruption in work schedules.

But according to the terms of radical equality, the pregnant woman is essentially the same. And she must be treated the same. Those who refuse to recognize this patent falsehood may be severely punished for “pregnancy discrimination.”

Combating “pregnancy discrimination” is now one of the highest priorities of the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which consumes hundreds of billions each year (as much as four percent of GNP, according to Peter Brimelow) in enforcing anti-discrimination statutes, intruding upon employment decisions and seeking penalties for discrimination. Pregnancy discrimination violates an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The amendment stipulates that pregnancy is similar to any other short-term medical condition, no different from a broken leg or the flu, and a woman may not be barred from employment or promotion due to pregnancy. In actuality, the statute requires that pregnancy be viewed as distinct from other medical conditions. Employers are not under the same pressure to hire and promote workers who are clearly limited due to any of a number of other medical conditions. An employer will not be sued for refusing to promote someone with, say, a debilitating heart condition that affects his work.

Pregnancy discrimination charges by the EEOC against businesses have increased by 25 percent in the last five years alone, according to EEOC figures. In gauging the effect of this increase, it is important to bear in mind that businesses that are sued are not the only ones affected by the increase. Other businesses must take measures to ensure they are not sued, possibly resorting to lawyers, consultants and inefficiency in the process.

“[S]uch a dramatic increase unfortunately illustrates that too many employers are ignoring their legal obligation not to discriminate against pregnant workers,” said Spencer H. Lewis, Jr., district director of the EEOC’s Philadelphia District Office.

Such a dramatic increase almost certainly does not reflect any change in employment decisions and attitudes. Pregnancy has always affected employment, and always will, at least for as long as businesses strive to be businesses and not socialist enterprises. What this increase does suggest is more intense enforcement and a greater ideological commitment to fighting pregnancy discrimination, possibly affected by the ongoing increase in the number of single mothers and almost certainly by the poor job market.

Here are a few recent lawsuits initiated by the EEOC:

• Capri Home Care in Clearwater, Fla. hired an administrative assistant. On her first day of work, she disclosed that she was pregnant, something she failed to mention during interviews. The company fired her and eventually hired a non-pregnant woman. The EEOC filed suit this month against Capri, seeking back pay for work the pregnant woman never performed, as well as punitive and compensatory damages.

• A Rockville, Md. apartment complex hired a housekeeper who then disclosed that she was pregnant. Documentation of the case reveals that managers of the complex were concerned about the effect of cleaning fluid fumes on the woman and required that she provide documentation that these would not harm her or her child. The documentation did not satisfy its concerns, which were possibly motivated by self-interest, given the possibility of a lawsuit in the event of birth defects. The EEOC filed suit this month and is seeking back pay and damages.

• Chemcore Industries of Marietta, Ga. hired a customer service representative. She did not disclose that she was pregnant during the interview. On her first day of work, she revealed her condition and was fired a few hours later. The EEOC has sued.

• A woman who was employed at the Hawthorne Amry Depot in Nevada was subject to “derogatory remarks” because of her pregnancy. She was also fired and is seeking back pay and damages for a job that involved handling live explosives.

• A New York City hair salon fired a colorist who was pregnant. Her right to a job involving exposure to noxious fumes is being challenged by the EEOC.

 • A bar in Peoria has been sued for refusing to allow a pregnant waitress to work the popular Sunday night football shift.

 In each of these cases, the EEOC claims that the employee was the victim of arbitrary and unreasonable exclusion.

“To deny a woman employment because she is pregnant places her and her family in a position of immeasurable harm,” said Malcolm Medley, director of the EEOC’s Miami District Office. “The EEOC remains steadfast in its commitment to take legal action against those who employ such tactics.”

According to Robert Weisberg, the EEOC’s Miami regional attorney, “Pregnant women have the right to seek jobs and work in an environment free of discrimination. The EEOC continues, with this suit, to seek vigorous enforcement of the laws that protect all women from this kind of intentional and egregious discrimination.”

A society which expects mothers to be breadwinners, and publicly denies their natural state of dependency, logically leads to this sort of thinking and to a form of institutionalized selfishness. Rather than deferring to the priorities of the working world, the pregnant woman, with the encouragement of government, challenges them. Though she has not gotten pregnant on her own, responsibility for her condition of dependency has been officially transferred from the father of her child to government and business.

When businesses are responsible for supporting pregnant women and mothers regardless of their work performance, they are no longer businesses. They are socialist arms of the government. A humane and sensible employer would keep a pregnant employee if he liked her and if he valued her work. It is in his interests to do so. “Pregnancy discrimination” is based on the fallacy that the entrepreneur is motivated by irrational impulses more than by the desire to make a living and that an unproven male conspiracy against women underlies many business decisions.

The pursuit of pregnancy discrimination is one more example of how the government has steadily eroded the authority of the ordinary man and has introduced a chilling form of distrust between employed and employer. Where once the man was in charge of his wife, now the government is, at the expense of freedom and good will. This project is not in the interests of women at large. It only increases their enslavement to the marketplace and damages their appeal as workers.

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Kimberly writes:

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