(Written for the Carnival of Ohio Politics, now in it's 9th week thanks to Paul Miller of Northwest Ohio Net. This week's Carnival is now up, as always some really good writing/research by my fellow Ohioan bloggers.
This issue is going to be discussed alot more in the future, especially here in Ohio where we have several Democratic candidates who have already stated their support for this. It is with some trepidation I write this but I feel it has to be brought up. On a personal level as a woman and a Catholic I don't support abortion, yet it is not my right to tell another woman what she can do with her own body. I consider myself pro-choice for that reason. Given that, the first statement as part of the 95-10 Initiative sounds very encouraging:
The 95-10 Initiative is a comprehensive package of federal legislation and policy proposals that will reduce the number of abortions by 95% in the next 10 years. While both Democrats and Republicans talk about reducing the number of abortions, Democrats for Life of America offers real solutions to make this goal a reality. With bold new ideas, sound research and policy arguments, the 95-10 Initiative contains proven policy suggestions to dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America.
So far so good, after all that is a very noble goal. Then....
Federal Funding for Toll-Free Number/National Public Awareness Program
Federal Funding for Pregnancy Prevention Education
Federal Funding for Abortion Counseling and Daycare on University Campuses
Increase Federal Funding for Domestic Violence Programs
Fully Fund Federal WIC Program
Require SCHIP to cover pregnant women
First, only one of these programs deals with the only real way to prevent abortion, preventing an unwanted pregnancy in the first place:
Federal Funding for Pregnancy Prevention Education
Provide grants to school districts that are in need of funds to administer effective, age-appropriate pregnancy prevention education.
Then this next one concerns me:
Provide Accurate Information to Patients Receiving a Positive Result from an Alpha-Fetoprotein Test tests.
Pregnant women who choose to undergo prenatal genetic testing should be provided with information on the accuracy of these tests.
There can be false-positive results, indicating a problem when the fetus is actually healthy.
The real solution to this is to develop a better test. There are known issues with this test, personally it's a hellishly bad test in which if you do get a positive result the stress you go thru to either determine it was right or it was wrong given the rate of accuracy is a test that in my opinion should be discontinued. It was designed to be a first screening tool, yet even when it is correct, the disagreement surrounding the rate of the false positives alone is enough to question the use. Yet as far as the 95-10 Initiative, very few women have abortions based on this test, the majority of abortions that happen do so before this test would even be administered. The AFP test is generally done between the 16th and 18th weeks of pregnancy. The CDC in 2003 estimated that 58 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 88 percent are performed within the first 12 weeks. Many doctors now encourage the use of the triple screening test which can be done earlier, yet still this would not have a huge impact on the numbers of abortions if the CDC is correct.
Next is how can the majority of this even be implemented? Right now budget cuts just approved by a Republican majority have hit entitlement programs with more cuts to come. From this very Initiative it clearly states the numbers of women and infants who will be affected by the current cuts in WIC:
Special Nutrition for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is funded at about $4.9 billion, which advocates say is $268 million less than what's needed to serve the current 7.86–7.90 million participants.
The administration expects 8.2 million pregnant women, infants, and young children to be served by the program. Thus, this analysis assumes that an eight percent reduction translates into 670,000 fewer people being served (which is eight percent of 8.2 million).
The administration also proposes placing an overall cap on all non-defense, non-Homeland Security discretionary spending for the next five years. By 2010, those discretionary caps could force 660,000 recipients to lose WIC in 2010. Between 2006 and 2010, the WIC cuts could total $657 million.
If you as Democrats cannot even get WIC funding to cover those who currently need it? How the rest of this plan can move forward under the current political climate I really have to question. Where is the funding for the rest of this Initiative going to come from?
My primary issue with this is the majority of the focus is not on preventing pregnancy, it is on encouraging pregnant women to not have an abortion. I understand that Democrats that are pro-life are trying to find a way to get their message out there. I'm just not sure if I agree with this one as the way to do that. To me the main focus of 95-10 should be to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, then focus on what can be done to help those who do not want to terminate a pregancy thru abortion. Finally, how this would be paid for is an issue that also needs to be really looked at.
22 comments:
Interesting ideas there. I did notice that it is structured to help single mothers and to help prevent abortions, but nothing about giving funds and support to the adoption alternative. That is a way to reduce spending government money and preventing more abortions. The pregnant mother deleievrs the baby to term and gives the baby to a couple that are unable to have chilren of their own. If we can reform the adoptation laws so that the lawyers don't get rich on them and that American people can adopt American babies instead of going overseas for a kid, then the taxes payers don't have to support another child as result of the mother being drunk at a bar and getting knocked up and that child has a better chance of being a productive member of society and less of a chance of being a criminal.
I have heard the aurguement that same race parents and children must stay together or one culture will be lost forever. I have seen news shows (and that term is used very loosely) where minority young adults were raised in an orphanage until they were 18 and all of them (about 20 or so) said that they didn't care what color the skin was of the adoptative parent, they wish they had a parent to hug and love them and give them support. But the children were denied that because of social workers, making money in the mid $20,000s, thought that putting different races together would be bad. If people in charged cared for what was good for the child and less for what was right for a race 20 to 30 years ago, there wouldn't be so much crime or race hate today. Of course, that is just my opinion.
Sorry for the extra long rant and maybe this could have been a blog article in itself (Lisa is pulling out her hair yet again, screaming at the monitor, "C! Start your own blog Damnnit!!!!" By the way, I am the MFWSHAB from last year. Now that I have broken my silence, this gives Lisa lincease to bust my balls more on getting that little project off the ground.) Anyway, that was my serious thought for the day.
Nope, I have given up on trying to recruit you to blog. while you will always and forever be MFWSHAB, I know how little time you have and I'm selfish. If you had a blog with limited free time you have now? You wouldn't comment here, I enjoy your comments even when we don't agree. (Even more so when we do of course)
:-)
Preventing unwanted pregnancies, helping women who don't want to resort to abortion, and informing those who just don't care about the long-term effects of abortion are the ways I know to help reduce the number of abortions without making it illegal.
An effective program would have to touch on all these issues, and probably several more, to actually be effective.
Oh, and WIC is cool. We deserves more money.
Plah...I meant WIC deserves more money.
I agree WIC is cool and deserves funding. I used WIC when I was pregnant with Aubrey and after she was born. I breastfed so I got different items after she was born rather than the formula that others decide to opt for. I think it's a very worthwhile program and I know from personal experience how helpful it was to us during that time period.
As often as I visit your site, I was reading the header and noticed how similar it matched with a favorite hymn of mine, Be Still My Soul.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/e/bestill.htm
Click on the link and it will play for you and you can read along with the words.
I've gotten both packets from WIC, so I know what you're talking about. WIC would be a lot more useful with sufficient funding to actually staff their sites. Most people around here have to take off a day of work to go, because appointments can take any where from an hour (rarely) to three or four.
Thank you TF, there have been many times I've focused on the Psalm that inspired that hymn especially on this part:
God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, And though the mountains be shaken into the heart of the seas;
Thanks for the hymn, I can see why it would be a favorite.
The line from on my blog is from this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
I was lucky back when I was on it that I was living in Fulton County, their WIC program wasn't as advertised, infact I found out from a friend that it even existed (granted this was 12 years ago) I probably qualified before and wasn't aware it was available. That was of course before I learned how to research...
From what I understand even then Lucas County was about the same as what you described and now? Probably even longer. It's one of the few programs that actually has a good statistical reason for existance so to see it cut bothers me. Not just from the assistance part but the health/nutrition education aspect as well.
Now, in a good year (which are probably not going to happen much anymore) the local WIC even gives out farmer's market vouchers so the people in the program can get fresh fruits and vegetables. It's a really remarkable program that helps keep a lot of people heathy. It's definitely a mistake to cut the funding. If you find a petition for that too, let me know.
;-)
I agree we need a program more geared towards education and prevention to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I don't see it happening since I think we also need to do that with crime and drugs, but we prefer the punish it out of them method of getting a point across.
To add to the above opinions...
No prevention program is wanted by the Reps unless it only deals with abstinence because otherwise we would be forcing kids to have sex. Because you mention contraception to kids and they hear the message, "here, go have sex."
In many places in Europe, as liberal as they are, abortion is not well look upon, as it is seen as a societal failure, since efforts to promote contraception did not work.
About adoption, it's great. My sister in law was adopted. However, I'd like to raise some points people usually don't think about:
Few americans want to adopt minority kids from the US, horphanage kids from Eastern Europe are seen as more desirable since they at least are blondish. And they are not ready for the Reactive Attachment Disorder a great deal of those kids come with (which involves an inability to attach to the adoptive parents, aggression, problems with emotional arousal, and lack of empathy for others...)
Those who do want to adopt minority kids mean well, but are seldom ready to deal with the cultural issues that those adoptions raise. This is particularly true of white male gay couples adopting from overseas (based on research conducted by a friend of mine). Wealthy white gay couples who adopt don't think about the fact that their kids, as privileged as they may be by the parents wealth, are going to be discriminated upon based on their ethnicity (the parents do get that the kids may be teased about the parents' homosexuality).
OK, after ranting for a long time, here's the point.
1. let's prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies, that includes good education about contraception (even approved by the Dalai Lama a few years back).
2. Adoption is great, but adoptive parents need to have way more support, training, education, and professional interventions (when things go wrong). Sometimes the issues that arise are solvable, sometimes they're not (and the kids end up in residential programs).
Good advice on the adoption issue especially catdaddy. It is alot harder than most people realize when adopting overseas.
"No prevention program is wanted by the Reps unless it only deals with abstinence because otherwise we would be forcing kids to have sex."
Unfortunately, many people just don't realize that it isn't just kids who need to learn this stuff. Kids need to learn it too (and I certainly do think that abstinence needs to be encouraged, from the emotional damage caused by early sexual experiences as well as pregnancy risks, but not exclusively), of course, but they're far more adults who just don't get it than kids.
Why do so many people think the issue is just about irresponsible children?
Because most imagine a pregnant teenage mother, though that is not the majority of the group that has an abortion. Even this 95/10 doesn't address it properly since they are talking about college day care and maternity homes for teens.
Then because if we teach them well before they become sexually active we have a better chance at preventing unwanted pregancies.
That'd be my guess.
:-)
Sure, be smart about it.
:-/
lmao UF, sorry but I leave that kind of thing up to the guys over at Nimbusters.
Must be a really slow night if you are reading my stuff.
:-)
Elizabeth, the more kids know about sex (in a developmentally appropriate way), particularly about the emotional requirements and consequences, the better. Also, focus on one's future and having goals for it, delays the onset of sexual activity among teens, particularly for girls. Message: education and focus on their future goals (that they'll be able to attain them). Oopps, forgot: and things to do. Kids in areas where there is the least to do (rural) are more likely to engage in early and unprotected sex than are (in general) savvier kids in urban areas where there is more to do. Suburban kids are somewhere in between.
I couldn't agree more that the focus should be on "preventing" pregnancies.
I am sick to death with the "welfare whore" mentality. The way the system works, the more kids they pop out, the more money they get.
remember the woman who was 80 yards away while her 6 children and her sisters 1 child died in the apartment fire? At the time I told friends, "just watch, she will be pregnant again in no time". Sure thing, she was sentanced not quite 14 months after the fire, she has a 4 month old. That means she was in "mourning" for nearly a month before she got pregnant again. IIRC she is about 26, 27. Seven kids that died because she was stupid, and of a possible 35 year sentence she gets 1.
Then there was the Blade story several mnths ago about the County agency that purchased baby cribs for needy mothers but hadn't recieved them. The story was written around some woman, I can't recall how old she was, early 20's I think. She was pictured with her 2 children, one obviously black, the other obviously white, one 2.5 years, the other 11 months. She was also pregnant and due to give birth (by c-section) in a month or so. The story said she was a single mother.
Now if she is eligible for a free crib, logic would tell you that more than likely she is also on welfare, wic, etc. Who is paying for those children?, you and I and the other taxpayers that WORK. She has no right to keep having kids she can't pay for. After they have so many kids, they then have the excuse for not working that, I can't afford child care. Something has to be done to break the cycle.
Keep up the good work » »
Very cool design! Useful information. Go on! »
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