pregnant in academy?

[TALLON]

Star said it best. Set your priorities. If the PD is #1 priority, then hold off on the family planning until it's over. Choices people.

[mcsap]

I have a question. God forbid this actually woould happen, but what would happen if a female recruit happend to be raped and got pregnant? Would she then lose her job? Can you imagine the lawsuit? Bottom line is being a female recruit you have to be careful during the academy. If you really want to be an officer then you wouldn't chance it in any way. Things happen and until any of us are in that situation there is nothing we can say or do to comprehend this decision. Family or career. It's a decision many women make daily not just as a police officer.

I was waiting for this to be posted. A sexual assault is neither intentional on the woman's part or careless. She still couldn't finish the academy but MOAT certainly should not be further penalized as a crime victim. This really has nothing to do with the issue at hand as we are talking an intentional or careless act only.

[Odin]

Since we're covering all possibilities, what if a female recruit was abducted by aliens who impregnanted her in an interplanetary experiment? The pregnancy wouldn't be her fault, and firing her could lead the aliens to destroy the Earth. I guess what I'm saying is that they should go ahead and just immediately promote her to an administrative or detective position and let her finish the academy whenever she feels up to it. I hear those Martian EEOC investigators can get really nasty with you if you interfere with one of their employees.

[wild800]

I agree the training in the academy is too strenuous for a pregnant woman to complete, and most importantly poses a great risk to the child. Speaking from my own experience...I carried and delivered one child, impregnated by my own husband while married and serving in the Navy. We (I) made sure that I didn't come up pregnant while in Basic Training, two tours aboard ship, and then while in the Academy and during my Probationary year. Thankfully, my husband and I didn't choose to use abstinance as our family planning method! I realize there are some who like to use that method, I just think that is too much to ask of your spouse.

I was on shore duty and had already completed Basic Training at the time of my pregnancy, but a similar discussion came up frequently while I served aboard ship. Many a time I heard guys saying that female sailors were "taking all the shore duty billets" and "taking jobs away from the men" just by being in the Navy. There were no sea duty billets for us when I joined and it wasn't until 82 when I was able to get sea duty. Back in the early days (policies have changed some) a sailor would automaticly be transferred to shore duty if she came up pregnant. The numbers of pregnancies that came up a month or two before deployment made it fairly clear that they were purposely planned to avoid deployments. I always felt that was a really sad reason to plan to a child, and that it cast all of us women in a bad light.

I'm glad for the ADA protection, but I think if a cadet comes up pregnant she should be treated as any other person who can not complete the training, due to any injury or disability that didn't happen on the job, i.e. blown out knee from participating in a sport or traffic collision while away from the academy. If the Department can accomodate and keep any of these temporarily disabled persons on the payroll until they are ready to start over in another academy class that's great...but for smaller Departments the expense could really be a hardship.

We haven't had many pregnancies at my Department, since we are so small and understaffed to boot, the current practice has been to send a Detective back to patrol, and insert the pregnant officer in that slot. I'm not against it, but, I am not thrilled by that solution as the "new detective" hasn't had the benefit (in some cases) of having attended the Investigative Core Courses which we send our newly assigned detectives to. And I know that it could be a source of resentment for the ousted Detective.

I suspect there are still some people who don't think women should be working in Law Enforcement at all, and the inconvenience that a pregnancy would pose for us at any stage in our employment is just more validation in their eyes that we don't belong. It is good to see that isn't the majority opinion here at RP.

[Whitewolf1970]

Since we're covering all possibilities, what if a female recruit was abducted by aliens who impregnanted her in an interplanetary experiment? The pregnancy wouldn't be her fault, and firing her could lead the aliens to destroy the Earth. I guess what I'm saying is that they should go ahead and just immediately promote her to an administrative or detective position and let her finish the academy whenever she feels up to it. I hear those Martian EEOC investigators can get really nasty with you if you interfere with one of their employees.

:confused: :confused: What are you talking about?

[fedhopeful]

Recycled? What if a man who likes to stay out late and sleep in mornings is late for class every day and subsequently fails. Are you saying that he should curtail his late nights for 4, 5, or 6 months just because the academy wants him there early in the mornings? That would be very inconvenient for him. Why not recycle him, there's a chance he might not come back if he is failed.




I call BS on *that* one. For two reasons. One, abstinence for 4, 5, or 6 months is not "cruel and unusual" hardship. Soldiers manage it, why can't you? Also, nobody said that absitnence was the only answer. There are ways of making sure one does not become pregnant other than abstinence, but it will require more planning and thought than simply popping a pill.




Sorry, but "**** happens" is a piss poor excuse for just about anything in life. Calling an unplanned pregnancy anything but careless is like calling a negligent discharge of a weapon anything but careless. Sure, I can think of all sorts of scenarios where a weapon might discharge when the person holding the weapon didn't intend for that to happen, but every single one of those cases could have been avoided with proper precautions.

If you don't want to get pregnant then don't get pregnant. Nobody is dictating what method of birth control that you use, just don't get pregnant. I'd suggest either abstinence or multiple methods of birth control to ensure 100% effectiveness.

If a person cannot control whether or not they get pregnant for a simple 4-6 month period of their life then I question their judgement and ability to be a police officer. We're talking about a situation that requires 2 people to make a concerted effort in order for this to happen. If you can't control something like this then are you really able to control any aspect of your life?




They should be charged for the training investment that the department has made in them and released. If they want to reapply later then they should reapply. It all boils down to personal responsibility.

Easy my friend, I am a MAN. Thus I CANT get pregnant. As for the man staying out late, give me a break. No they should not be recycled. Injuries and pregnancies should.

[fedhopeful]

I see where you are going with this. However, most women are very quick to point out when they become pregnant that it is their body going through this and any decision about whether to carry it or kill it is theirs alone. With that "right" comes the responsibility to not do the one thing that will get them into that condition when doing so would have grave consequences.

Those "mistakes" can/do happen while taking the "necessary" precautions so that does not mean the sex was "careless". So to say the woman was careless is a bit unfair, unless you're saying they shouldn't have sex at all, which once again I call BS on.
I'm calling bullsh** on this. It is careless even if you used precautions. The precautions say right on the box that they are not 100% effective. We've known for years that the ONLY 100% guaranteed method of birth control is abstinence. By your logic, if a man uses a condom and the woman still becomes pregnant, the condom company should be responsible for his child support payments.

I don't know how you deduce that my logic faults a condom company but that's not how I meant to present it. Think of it more along the lines of "no fault". I just feel that some people in this thread were being unnecessarily harsh towards woman who get pregnant. I have a different definition of careless than you and thats fine. Agree to disagree

As for woman's rights to do whatever with the baby despite what the man wants, make no mistake, as a man I HATE that fact. We agree there. I'd be pretty pissed if a woman aborted my kid but it is the way it is.

[Odin]

Easy my friend, I am a MAN. Thus I CANT get pregnant. As for the man staying out late, give me a break. No they should not be recycled. Injuries and pregnancies should.

I wasn't targeting you specifically with my comments, just the situation as a whole.

Whether or not to recycle recruits should be left up to the dept, not the EEOC. If the dept has plenty of qualified applicants then why should they have to recycle someone who washed out for any reason? If you're in the Navy and try out for the Seals, during BUD/S if you get hurt they don't recycle you, you have to start from scratch another day. Why should the police hold a place for you when there are plenty of other applicants out there who can fill your place. Now if the dept really likes you as an applicant and they want to recycle you that should be their choice, but the choice should be up to the dept and not a legal issue. We all knew the rules of the game before we started playing, if you don't finish the academy (for whatever reason) then you should go to the back of the line.

[Odin]

I don't know how you deduce that my logic faults a condom company but that's not how I meant to present it. Think of it more along the lines of "no fault". I just feel that some people in this thread were being unnecessarily harsh towards woman who get pregnant. I have a different definition of careless than you and thats fine. Agree to disagree

As for woman's rights to do whatever with the baby despite what the man wants, make no mistake, as a man I HATE that fact. We agree there. I'd be pretty pissed if a woman aborted my kid but it is the way it is.

Other than acts of God/natural disasters (struck by lightning, etc.) what would you call a "no fault" situation? I mean, even a lightning strike might be an "at fault" if the person struck was playing golf while there was lightning in the sky. I have a hard time using the term "no fault". It's like calling a vehicle collision an "accident" or calling a negligent discharge an "accidental discharge". it's not accidental if your finger was on the trigger. It may have been unintentional, but it was no accident. A little more personal responsibility and a little less excuse making never hurt anyone.

[Star]

Come on guys, call it a truse. Here's a new question you two can argue about......Should a Law Enforcement Department hire you to drive around all day in a patrol car if you have hemmoroids? :D

[Whitewolf1970]

I'm feeling that this thread will be locked up soon. :(

[Odin]

Come on guys, call it a truse. Here's a new question you two can argue about......Should a Law Enforcement Department hire you to drive around all day in a patrol car if you have hemmoroids? :D

If the 'roids are big enough don't they make you a supervisor, being that you're already a huge pain in the ***?

[Switchback]

Not only has this thread gone beyond any productive discussion, it is also no lnoger anywhere near the original topic.