pregnant woman is causing a stir after she was asked to leave a bar in the northwest suburbs. Michelle Lee was enjoying a glass of water and a chat with a friend at a Chicago-area bar on Friday night. When the friend ordered shots, a bouncer asked to speak with her privately.
The bouncer immediately questioned Lee as to whether she was pregnant. Upon confirming that she was indeed eight months pregnant, the bouncer ordered her to leave the bar immediately, claiming that should a fight break out in the bar and something happen to her, the bar could be held responsible and they were unwilling to take that risk.
“It was a bunch of malarkey really,” she said, recalling the bouncer’s comments. “He said to me, ‘I have a personal question to ask you, are you pregnant?’ I said yes. Then he said, ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’”
“I was stunned,” she said. “He said, ‘If anything happened to you here, we would be responsible.’”
A manager at Coach House declined to comment, saying he wasn’t on duty when the incident occurred. The manager and bouncer involved in ousting Lee did not return phone calls seeking comment.
“There are certain things for which you are not able to discriminate against someone, and one is their gender,” said Ed Yohnka, an American Civil Liberties Union spokesman. “And only women can have babies. You can’t discriminate against a pregnant person.”
According to the Illinois Human Rights Act: “It is unlawful to discriminate in the full and equal enjoyment of facilities and services by any place of public accommodation.”
Did the bouncer believe a pregnant woman should be at home, safe from all potential harm, putting the welfare of her child above herself and her need for a night out? It doesn’t matter because it is illegal to ask a pregnant woman to leave your establishment because she’s pregnant. And Michelle Lee was a victim of discrimination.
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