Don't bite my head off, but is that really discrimination in the sense of what word actually means?
If you're literally not PRESENT to do the work, is that really a case of the employer discriminating against you? It's a privilege, not a right, to be paid to be at home taking care of a child.
I grew up in an area where a lot of discrimination occurred, but it was racially motivated. I've seen guys smarter than me literally chased out of stores, had fingers pointed at them while obscene slurs are shouted at them. I've seen brilliant minds that get trapped in the ""wrong"" bodies. They get caught in the wrong environment around the wrong people, and the stress and danger of it all breaks them down. I've seen racism obliterate men that could've been ANYTHING, rocket scientists or something, if they could've had the luck to have been born a different color or live in a different neighborhood.
So, from that perspective it's a bit mind-boggling that women will choose to pursue children and for some reason expect their employer to just pay them to be at home, while they aren't completing any work.
Of course it's important to be with your child early on. So do that. But is it really important that your employer pay for work you didn't do? That is something that I believe lies on the shoulders of government, not industry.
(And personally, I don't think govts should provide funding for it either, but that's for each nation to determine, and also cultures can be very different. It might not work here, but it may work over there.)
Nobody owes you anything because you went and got pregnant. Nobody should attack you for doing so, either. But to turn around and think that you are somehow ENTITLED to wages and compensation for that time is absolutely insane.