How dare someone exploit the benefits that are legally available! Employers can insure against the economic risk of having someone become pregnant. And you know what, just budget for that in your cost of hiring once you are big enough to have a full time payroll and HR person on staff. And start planning to give fathers leave as well.
If you (qua hypothetical business owner) can't cope with the fact that your employees are human being and that human beings have reasonable needs, then what good are you?
I was responding to: My wife's friend recently had a baby, and she exploited the situation to the full. [...] And I'm basically saying, why shouldn't she?
Maybe it's just me, but I thought it was clear that the author was referring to the abuse of such benefits, not that she was wrong for using that benefits legitimately.
Just to clarify again, I was talking about exploiting as in "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work." Not "the action of making use of and benefiting from resources." To make the difference clear in my edit, I used the term "utilizing" for the latter.
If you (qua hypothetical business owner) can't cope with the fact that your employees are human being and that human beings have reasonable needs, then what good are you?