Life Imitates Monty Python (Example #475)

One of the more absurd moments in Monty Python and the Life of Brian was when one of the oppressed Jews complained that the Romans was suppressing his right to an abortion.  The retort was something to the effect of, “but you’re a man!  You can’t even get pregnant!”  The pro-male-abortionist went on to say that if he could have a baby, the Romans would deny him the right to abort it, so he was being oppressed and eventually he convinced his cell of radicals to complain about that, too.

Stupid, huh?  Well, then get a load of this: Spanish fathers entitled to breastfeeding leave.  Fortunately we are talking about Spain, but the situation is so stupid its worth reading it in full:

The new legislation means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child.

The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that the Spanish law caused an "unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex" because fathers do not have the same rights as mothers.

Fathers are currently only allowed to apply for breastfeeding leave if the mother is employed full time.

The Spanish man who challenged the law, Pedro Manuel Roca Alvarez, said his request to take breastfeeding leave from his job in Galicia was rejected because the mother of his child was self-employed.

The top court said such a refusal could have the effect of forcing self-employed mothers to limit their work because the father cannot share the burden.

Not giving dads the same right as mums in this case "is liable to ... keep men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties," the court ruled.

Breastfeeding leave should now be considered as "time purely devoted to the child" in order to reconcile family life and work after maternity leave.

Now, I won’t entirely blame the courts for this.  The law explicitly allows men to take breastfeeding leave if the wife is employed full time, so the idiocy lies with the lawmakers, not the courts.  The courts was apparently just eliminating the distinction between wifes who were employed full time and those who were not, which might itself be absurd, but not on the crazy levels that giving a man time to breastfeed a child.

But if we are going to do that, I say the court should require him to actually use a device like this.