Letters: Fertile ground for change
[Re: Metro Bank, NatWest and Hospitality UK among top employers to back fertility pledge, Nov 2]
I was delighted to read your news that companies are signing up to the Fertility Workplace Pledge as part of Nickie Aiken’s campaign. By committing to providing better support to women undergoing IVF, these organisations are helping to close the gender health gap, and working to remove health barriers to the career progression of women.
Supporting and protecting women’s reproductive health must be a pillar of workplace policy if we are to ever achieve gender equality.
However, signing up to new workplace policies will achieve very little unless employers also work to foster a culture of transparency, so that women feel able to speak up about their treatment and can request the flexibility and support available under these new frameworks.
Enshrining women’s health rights in workplace policies is long overdue – but these rights also need to be enshrined in law. We should wholeheartedly support Nickie Aiken’s Private Member’s Bill as an important step towards that goal.
Professor Geeta Nargund