49In those circumstances, the right to maternity leave granted to pregnant workers must be regarded as a particularly important mechanism of protection under employment law. The Community legislature thus considered that the fundamental changes to the living conditions of the persons concerned during the period of at least 14 weeks preceding and after childbirth constituted a legitimate ground on which they could suspend their employment, without the public authorities or employers being allowed in whatever way to call the legitimacy of that ground into question.
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