Yes. It's important to take stress off new parents. Raising a baby is hard enough as it is, but doing that without the mother's income is just a whole new level of difficulty. Paid leave ensures that mothers (and fathers, for that matter; paternity leave
should be encouraged) are there to provide for their children at such a pivotal stage.
The United States is embarrassingly far behind on maternity leave. Even China, a country with some of the world's worst labor laws, requires 12 weeks of full paid leave. That's not a lot on a global scale, but it is an infinity percent increase over what is required in the good ol' US of A. The same China that hardly allows its people to have children is beating us on maternity leave.
If I recall correctly, Norway has a sweet maternity/paternity leave system. Mother gets six months, father gets six months, and another six months goes to whichever parent wants it.
I don't know. That's kind of a poor argument. That's like saying, raise the minimum wage because people can't survive off of minimum wage. Well that's nobody's fault but their own. I do agree that they should still be paid, but definitely not as much as if they were working. Then again, I am a firm believer of earning what you receive. If the women truly can't survive, maybe she should consider going on food stamps.
Obligatory Devil's advocate: one cannot get a better job unless offered a better job. What with the political gaming involved in getting a promotion in many companies, it is possible that more deserving workers get shrugged off to the side as, um, bosses' pets take those promotions.
Capitalism assumes that companies always act rationally. They don't.
Side note on minimum wage: I seem to recall studies that said a minimum wage increase would grow the economy. Wealth equality in general fuels growth, but in this specific case, there's something even more magical at work which companies ignore: the cost of worker turnover. Higher paid workers stick around longer, and so training costs drop off. Again, companies don't always naturally act in their own best interests.