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The Right Prescription
Republicans Rock the Airwaves
So why didn’t Rick Santorum take advantage to explain his real views on prenatal testing?
The most recent installment of the reality TV series, known as the Republican Presidential Debates, drew more cable viewers than The Jersey Shore or any of the cable channels’ tributes to Whitney Houston. Never before have so many Americans been directly engaged in political discourse. (There were as many tweets, Google searches, etc. for the Arizona debate than for any other show on TV the other night!)
If you are like me, you were channeling the candidates and thinking of things they should have said but didn’t. Why didn’t Romney just say that Romneycare’s individual insurance mandate was a mistake just as was Santorum’s support for No Child Left Behind? Why not add that much of Romneycare — individual buying at group rates, reforming Medicaid, and having insurance plans add a health savings account to their offerings — are things Republicans support.
I hoping CNN’s John King would have asked Rick Santorum about his views regarding prenatal testing. Santorum could have restated, without the left’s media filter, that he doesn’t want to ban contraception or prenatal screening.
Instead, he is concerned that prenatal screening, to detect for so-called birth “defects” such as Down’s Syndrome, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis and Fabry’s Disease, will be used in combination with abortion to place limits on neonatal care to control health care costs for high risk infants.
He is right to be concerned and talk about it. The health systems of Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia discourage life-sustaining treatment for extremely premature or low birthweight babies. In 2005, the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) announced that “very premature babies were taking up intensive care space that could be used for healthier babies” and suggested that those born at very low gestations should not be intensively treated but rather allowed to die.
It said such infants were “bed blocking” and that due to better medicines and devices, “[t]here has been a constant need to expand numbers of cots to cover the increasing tendency to try and rescue babies at lower and lower gestations.”
A review of neonatal intensive care units in Canada found “the majority of medical staff members do not recommend NICU care for an infant born at 24 weeks’ gestation…” The review concludes that in some Canadian NICUs, preterm infants are not considered to be persons and, thus, are not treated in the same way as a larger patient. It doesn’t help that Canada has severely limited growth in the number of NICUs. But that’s by design. Indeed, to keep their babies alive, Canadian parents go to U.S. hospitals. In recent years hundreds have done so. U.S. doctors try to do what their Canadian colleagues cannot or will not, as in the case of Michelle James. Her doctors in Canada could not halt her labor when it began at 24 weeks and were not optimistic about the viability of her pregnancy. In the U.S., doctors succeeded in stopping labor for three weeks, improving her daughter’s ability to survive and avoid a disability.
Could the cold calculus of cost-effectiveness be paired with prenatal screening under Obamacare? It already is.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and a senior advisor to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute — the two agencies responsible for producing comparative effectiveness findings — are already issuing guidance that would ration care to sick, vulnerable infants based on cost consideration and one-size fits all research.
Jean Slutsky — who works for both AHRQ and PCORI — heads up a committee that decides what technologies PCORI will examine. Here’s what she and two colleagues said about prenatal screening: “Compelling stories of children who died from very rare metabolic disorders that might have been detected with newer, more expensive equipment have created powerful momentum for expanded screening of newborns. But in an era of constrained budgets, state policymakers need to weigh the benefits and costs of new screening programs against those of other equally important programs. Nonetheless, it remains politically risky to frame a health policy decision as being based primarily on cost or cost-effectiveness.” That’s compassion for you.
AHRQ and PCORI were established to obscure the fact that health policy decisions based on cost are politically cheap. AHRQ claims that there is no benefit for routine use of inhaled nitrous oxide to oxidate the lungs of pre-term infants. Yet dozens of studies demonstrate that newborns with iNO in combination with continuous airway pressure saves the lives of those with severe respiratory failure and pulmonary hyperplasia. It has been shown to save the lives of infants with premature rupture of the membranes (before 24 weeks of gestation). And it is looking at whether spending so much money on care for at risk babies is “cost-effective.”
America spends more on at risk infants than any other nation. More babies that once died because they were too sick or small after birth are alive and part of loving families. We lead the world in life sustaining therapies for newborns. Santorum is standing up against the monstrous moral certainty of Obamacare. Amen to that.
About the Author
Robert M. Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and founder of Hands Off My H ealth, a grass roots health care empowerment network. His is new book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used To Hijack Medical Science For Fear and Profit, was published last month by Kaplan.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (57) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.24.12 @ 7:10AM
The one advantage Canadian women can get for their newborns when they are airlifted to the USA to be safely born and saved is that the life thus saved has American citizenship. In Canada, abortion is legal right up til the baby takes its first breath. There is no law at all controlling abortion, and not only do "maternity tourists" flock here to have Canadian citizen babies who can grow up to sponsor their extended families, but to abort them if they are girls -- and its a jackpot if they have to be rushed to Michigan because there is no neonatal intensive care bed available in the entire country of Canada, and that little Chinese or Pakistani or Indian baby goes home wrapped in the American flag.
Rick Santorum| 2.24.12 @ 1:59PM
Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Alan Brooks| 2.24.12 @ 11:02PM
POE
Alan Brooks| 2.24.12 @ 11:05PM
Romney and Santorum, all of 'em, are secretly inclined to being social democrats, just as Obama is.
It makes the old folks feel good to think it is all going to stay the same as it was decades ago-- when it wont.
It's akin to a Hollywood backdrop: capitalist in front, behind the facade it is social democratic.
stage9| 2.25.12 @ 2:49PM
Contrast Rick Santorum with Obamney:
The Mitt Romney Report: LIBERAL POLICIES THE NEWS MEDIA WILL NOT TELL YOU ABOUT ROMNEY
http://massresistance.org/romney/
Romney 'forced Catholic hospitals to provide Plan B'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ne.....agencies-m
squalis| 2.24.12 @ 7:19AM
Just remember...each baby born dimishes resources available for the rest of us.
Nemo| 2.24.12 @ 9:49AM
Taking this to its logical conclusion, if the Earth had a population of one, that one person could live like an Emperor. Or is there a catch in this somewhere?
Jim| 2.24.12 @ 9:59AM
So then stop using our resources and leave this earth - why are you more important than the next person?
Von Mises Jr.| 2.24.12 @ 10:32AM
squalis, that is a squalid argument. You buy the "straw man agrument" of those too lazy to think. Why is there not enough money? Would there be more money if Obama didn't give $525M to Solyndra along with countless other green energy scams? Would there be more money if we didn't have billions in "slush" funds as part of a $787B stimulus scam? Would there be more money if both parties didn't bailout GS and AIG?
Pascal's "Port Royal Logic" states you must have an unambiguous, unequivocal definition of a term, and it must be used consistently. So does limited resourses mean no resources available, or what is left after fraud, waste and abuse?
And your squalid argument is exactly what Nemo states below. You are ripe for the "death panel." Your costs outweigh your usefulness.
Stammon| 2.24.12 @ 10:45AM
Then how about I shoot you in the head so I can have another kid? That is where your logic and compassion lead us. Do not be so selfish, it's makes you look bad.
SeymourGlass| 2.24.12 @ 4:01PM
squalis: on the other hand... each baby born increases the pool of people who can till, plant and harvest (in any field) as we work toward a more perfect world.
squalis| 2.24.12 @ 10:56PM
No recognizes sarcasm?
John - TMF| 2.24.12 @ 8:06AM
The paradox of the utility of human life.
The utility of human life is either infinity or ZERO. There is no in between.
If society chooses to grade the quality of below that of infinitely valuable and consequential, all life will eventually be worth absolutely nothing.
Our society (the West, not just America - Canada included there Appleby.) has embarked upon a dark path of grading human life. It assigns qualities that make that life more or less desirable, useful, and worthwhile. This is a murderous fools errand.
Human life is infinitely valuable, and by its very existence for whatever period of time, alters our existence in this universe.
The promise of the next generation is the only real weath that we have. All the gold, jewels, industry, science, knowledge... all of it is worthless without humanity to pass it along to, and value it.
Social Conservatives upset the Utilitarians because Social Conservatives are a direct challenge. Those of us who value life as infinitely valuable will always be despised by they who grade it like a commodity.
Regards,
John - TMF
(Economic conservatives rarely are actually conservative. Their fiscal restraint almost always loses out to prurient desire.)
hardcard| 2.24.12 @ 9:07AM
EVIL is rampant. Stop obamasoros!!!!!!
Mimi| 2.24.12 @ 9:26AM
It looks like the Pro-Choice has diminished itself in numbers, to the point whereby a Rick Santorum, can rise to the helm of the last four to vy for the President of the U.S. It is now up to his wisdom and strengths to cross the finish line...and if Newt can get a third chance at the bat. ..
If Obama can be VETTED this time around...We may be able to remain the highest in saving pre-term babies. I dread to think another term with the ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL Obama-Care with all its limits placed on not only our Liberty's but on our lives and those of who we LOVE.
He darn well better be VETTED....down to the last bit of air he passed out of his annus into his pants and the where it happened and the when!!!
Teaghan| 2.24.12 @ 11:18AM
Mimi,
You don't really think this will happen, do you? The media love the bastard and his mooching wife. They are their Gods. They could kill their kids and it not be reported.
Mimi| 2.24.12 @ 2:28PM
Teaghan, With all the debates we've had...I'm hoping some of the "WISDOM" wore off on a few.
If any of them LOVE their country the'll vett him...they now know their failure to do their job in 2008 ...what that has done to this NATION...God help us if they fail again!....MEDIA Are you listening?
crookedwren| 2.24.12 @ 10:15AM
Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" clearly points out that this is where we were headed
Al Adab| 2.24.12 @ 10:15AM
The GOP candidates, and the ultimate nominee, need to be on the attack in foreign policy and economic issues. The social issues will follow as a matter of course. It is not necessary to explain away the chimerical threat of "activist Conservatives" trying to manage and control the thoughts and social behaviors of the citizens. Conservatism carries with it a respect for the rule of law, even when a particular law may be misguided. Changes in law happen through the legislative proces not through the executive dictat. Even though The Left uses that and the courts to impose their agenda, Conservatives will not. Nonetheless, the fact that one side does so creates fear in many that the other side will.
Mimi| 2.24.12 @ 2:38PM
Al Adab Only a few percentage...I think 10-15% are Issue-Only voters...that number can make or break an election. Don't worry...the social cons we have running now can handle all aspects...They are great at foriegn policy and Fiscal/Economical areas as well as "RIGHT" on all cultural issues...we are lucky to have them!
Al Adab| 2.24.12 @ 2:50PM
Thanks Mimi:
As I stated the social issues will follow of their own accord once a Conservative government is in place. There is no need to "impose" social solutions as the majority of the voters adhere to rational beliefs. The 10 to 15% will indeed make this election. We need to keep them onboard.
Bill| 2.24.12 @ 10:36AM
Guess Who?
voted for
1. Raising the debt ceiling 5 times
2. Planned Parenthood
3. Medicare Part D
4. NCLB
5. Bridge to nowhere
voted against
1. "Right-to-Work" law
Ans: "Keystone big-government RINO" Rick Santorum
TrueBlue | 2.24.12 @ 3:51PM
1) If he hadn't voted to raise the debt ceiling it still would have passed, he was hardly the deciding vote. If he hadn't voted for it and the government shut down, then he'd be getting hit for letting the government shut down like the Republicans were during the Clinton years. Lose-Lose situation.
2) The Planned Parenthood funding was part of a larger bill that was not going to pass without the support of those who wanted it in there. It's called compromise, married couples do it all the time. The fault is on the federal government not following their own rules and insuring government money is not spent on abortions.
3) Medicare Part D is actually the only successful part of the entire Medicare program, it actually pays for the majority of what it provides and was a good step toward reform for the program. It proved that Paul Ryan's ideas for complete reform of the program will actually work.
4) He already admitted that voting for NCLB was a mistake. God forbid someone make a mistake and then own up to it, especially a politician!
5) The Bridge to Nowhere was NOT IN THE FINAL PASSED BILL. Therefore he did not vote for it. It was also part of that years funding bill, not a separate bill on its own.
Voted against "Right-to-work" Law. Hey, you finally got something to hit him one. Guess what that says, HE'S NOT PERFECT. Last I checked, NOBODY is perfect.
Bill| 2.24.12 @ 4:50PM
Santorum is as bad as Romney. Gingrich is better than two of kind.
Clint| 2.26.12 @ 10:35AM
" Santorum’s Liberal Voting Record
Rick Santorum voted with Barbara Boxer with this: S Amdt 3230 – Gun Lock Requirement Amendment
Rick Santorum voted for H J Res 47 – Debt Limit Increase Resolution – Key Vote
Rick Santorum voted for taxes in the Internet Access Tax Bill
Rick Santorum voted for HR 1 – No Child Left Behind Act
Rick Santorum voted to confirm President William J. Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a fourth four-year term.
Rick Santorum voted for HR 3448 – Minimum Wage Increase bill which allows punitive damages for injury or illness to be taxed.
- Allows damages for emotional distress to be taxed.
- Repeals the diesel fuel tax rebate to purchasers of diesel-powered automobiles and light trucks.
Rick Santorum Voted to confirm President William J. Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the third four year term.
Rick Santorum voted for the protection of Abortion Clinics
I would add that this list just scratches the surface of Santorum’s career-long liberal voting record. As Sen. Rand Paul said of Santorum to CNN on Monday:
“He voted to double the size of the Department of Education… He voted to expand Medicare and add free drugs for senior citizens and he has voted for foreign aid. Those are not conservative principles. Seventy-seven percent of the American people are opposed to foreign aid and Rick Santorum has voted for it every time it’s come down.”
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Convention.
tadcf| 2.24.12 @ 10:43AM
All we're saying is give people a choice. If a fetus is not even aware of itself---because the neurological wiring has not developed to that point yet---how can abortion be called murder. And even it the soul does exist, abortion doesn't kill it. So, effectively, abortion just makes a mass of matter inviable.
Stammon| 2.24.12 @ 10:50AM
So you are saying I can shoot you in your sleep?
I believe abortion is murder, but I do not want the state to tell any woman what to do with her body. And I never will pay for an abortion.
Teaghan| 2.24.12 @ 11:20AM
Slither on back over to Media Matters, HufPo or MoveOn. You're sickening.
EqualTime| 2.24.12 @ 4:28PM
Are you the same Teaghan who wrote the post below, and are now calling tadcf sickening? Help me understand how this approach will win enough independents to elect a Republican president, whoever it might be.
Mimi,
The media love the bastard and his mooching wife. They are their Gods. They could kill their kids and it not be reported.
W| 2.24.12 @ 12:10PM
tadcf,
So you suggest it is ok to kill any mass of matter that is not aware of itself? That is such an idiotic statement unworthy of discussion.
Are you the designated lefty troll of the day for abortion articles? Go away and send someone with intelligence and awareness.
Al Adab| 2.24.12 @ 3:17PM
W:
Once we define (ala Dred Scott) what is and is not human, we relegate others to a category where their existence is discretionary. I supose that would be OK if I were making the decision, but I'd rather not "play God" nor have my government do so for me.
W| 2.24.12 @ 9:44PM
Al Adab
The commies, ultimate believers in a powerful all controlling government, killed over 100 million last century. They decided who was "aware" or a "human life." This is what leftists love: absolute power over you.
Tex Expatriate| 2.24.12 @ 3:20PM
If you really mean it is okay to kill a mass of tissue that is not aware of itself, then I submit that it is okay to you, because your post shows you have no awareness as a human being.
TrueBlue | 2.24.12 @ 4:09PM
So what you're saying tadcf is that if a person is not aware of themselves it's not murder? You realize that basically says it's okay to kill someone in a coma, since we can't prove they are aware of themselves. Or even many children under 3 since any of them can't articulate their opinions clearly enough for most people to understand. After all, if you can't prove someone is aware they're obviously not aware.
Heck, let's take it a step further and just look at your last sentence, "So, effectively, abortion just makes a mass of matter inviable." By that reasoning killing ANYBODY is not murder, since it doesn't kill their soul, it just "makes a mass of matter inviable."
Nock| 2.24.12 @ 11:26AM
Ron Paul is right. The lesson of history is that bankrupt states do not remain great imperial powers for long.
Mimi| 2.24.12 @ 1:49PM
Speaking of Ron Paul....Whats this alliance with Romney all about? We need when this "MONKEY BUSINESS" began ....time and date!
Interesting he (MITT) gets Paul to take up a seat at the table and badger the Conservatives at both ends...Collect votes into delegates to PLAY GAMES at the comvention. Romney, so good at covering all his bases and diligent down to the letter PREP-WORK....Funny. Did he have the whole PRIMARY process well planned before it even began...If thats the story, he is a manipulator that doesn't deserve to be elected President...We the People should choose only us...and if it is genius advisors doing the plotting...they need to GO!!!
Dick Nome| 2.24.12 @ 3:41PM
Rube Paul does not like COnservatives. He is an old radical Libertarian crackpot.
JohnM| 2.24.12 @ 12:27PM
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life
Mimi| 2.24.12 @ 1:50PM
LIBERTY and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS!
Joe D.| 2.24.12 @ 4:00PM
My grandaughter is alive today because of the great medical technology. Under Obamacare at 27 weeks 1 LB 12 oz she would be dead. She is a wonderful healthy 3 year old and I would not trade her.
POST American| 2.24.12 @ 10:31PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
Lace curtain, election year moral
window dressing.
Back in REALITY,
-------Santorum provided KEY suppport
for the ANTI-Constitutional passage of
NDAA 1021 (secret arrests/executions etc).
He's also made NO ISSUE of the 4 decades
on CFR/Trilateral Globalist RED China
handover, sellout, TREASON and EUGENICS
------------------------OP-------------------------.
IN FACT ----he hasn't even mentioned it!
sirbourbon| 2.25.12 @ 5:56PM
"Santorum is standing up against the monstrous ....of Obamacare."
Did he begin "standing against Obamacare" by backing Arlen Spector, the senator that broke the filibuster and gave us the unconstitutional Affordable Heatlhcare and Patient Protection Act - oh Bummer-care?
Moe Blotz| 2.25.12 @ 7:31PM
Connecting candidate Santorum to Senator Specter and PPAACA is fallacy. When Senator Santorum supported Arlen Specter for re-election in 2004, the latter was a sitting Republican senator who was not yet taking chemotherapy for his cancer. In 2009 Snarlin' Arlen had jumped back to his home in the Democrat party and is now where he belongs in Phluffya with a slip and fall law firm.
Mike Hawk| 2.25.12 @ 8:29PM
Specter in '04 if re-elected in a Senate Majority was due for chaimanship of the Judiciary Committee. That is why W and the Administration and PA state GOP and RNC/ RSCC went full bore to support Snarlin' Arlen who was the Senior Republican Senator from PA. Rick Santorum as Juior Senator didn't have a lot of choice and it wiould not have changed the primary outcome. Personally, I supported Pat Toomey, but gladly voted for Specter in the General election. The Democrat was the Looney Leftist Socialist Joe Hoeffel. Specter and the RNC/ RSCC repaid Risk Santorum by stabbing him in the back. Our resident Looney Libertarian TPINO (I like that Moe) probably voted for Bob(with one"o") Casey since he seems to have a hard-on for Rick.
Clint| 2.26.12 @ 10:38AM
" Santorum’s Liberal Voting Record
A compilation by Brian Frank from the South Carolina Hotline blog:
Rick Santorum voted with Barbara Boxer with this: S Amdt 3230 – Gun Lock Requirement Amendment
Rick Santorum voted for H J Res 47 – Debt Limit Increase Resolution – Key Vote
Rick Santorum voted for taxes in the Internet Access Tax Bill
Rick Santorum voted for HR 1 – No Child Left Behind Act
Rick Santorum voted to confirm President William J. Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a fourth four-year term.
Rick Santorum voted for HR 3448 – Minimum Wage Increase bill which allows punitive damages for injury or illness to be taxed.
- Allows damages for emotional distress to be taxed.
- Repeals the diesel fuel tax rebate to purchasers of diesel-powered automobiles and light trucks.
Rick Santorum Voted to confirm President William J. Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the third four year term.
Rick Santorum voted for the protection of Abortion Clinics
I would add that this list just scratches the surface of Santorum’s career-long liberal voting record. As Sen. Rand Paul said of Santorum to CNN on Monday:
“He voted to double the size of the Department of Education… He voted to expand Medicare and add free drugs for senior citizens and he has voted for foreign aid. Those are not conservative principles. Seventy-seven percent of the American people are opposed to foreign aid and Rick Santorum has voted for it every time it’s come down.”
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To A Brokered Rebellion.
sirbourbon| 2.25.12 @ 5:58PM
Or was Rick Santorum standing firm for Republican principles when he was "team player" and taking the hits for socialist G.W. Bush's No Child Left behind?
Moe Blotz| 2.25.12 @ 7:18PM
The primary author of "No Child Left Behind" was the late Ted Kennedy. The law you attribute to George W. Bush was a bipartisan boondoggle.
sirbourbon| 2.25.12 @ 6:02PM
Maybe you were thinking that the Rickster trickster was doing his best to swim around the treacherous tubes; navigating the canals of moral turpitude throwing money at Planned Parenthood to do as they wished with his blessing?
I bet Rick popped into the confessional for that one!
sirbourbon| 2.25.12 @ 6:06PM
Then there are the votes for other socialist programs, departments and agencies and giveway plans to foreign dictators that people foolishly call "aid," instead of betrayl of the very core of the Constitutiion! But you go ahead and call Santorum the "conservative," but... it TAIN'T GONNA MAKE EM ONE! NOT IN A MILLION decades OF DECEIT.
POST American| 2.25.12 @ 10:38PM
-----------------------LAST WORD-----------------------
Santorum is, at best, a shameless enabler
of the Globalist capstone police state and
handover age-enda.
Romney is a a wholly 'on board' Globalist.
NO MORE ---NO LESS.
---From Bush Sr ---thru Clinton ---Bush Jr
--to BAR--Rockefeller Obama ----the continuity
has been impeccable.
Becka| 2.26.12 @ 9:20AM
Can we PLEASE deal with the important issues in this primary season? Contraception, the Devil, prenatal testing? This is ridiculous. An entire article written about Santorum's views on prenatal testing? You people are loons.
Nock| 2.26.12 @ 11:29AM
How do you plan on dealing with the Devil, loony tunes? Bore him to death with your Dark Age religious gab?
Mike Hawk| 2.26.12 @ 4:32PM
All these 'issues' are courtesy od the Statist media and the DNC. Nobody else is concerned, not Republicans anyway.
Bumr50| 2.26.12 @ 10:00PM
Never Mittens.
POST American| 2.27.12 @ 11:40PM
----------------'SUB--Mitt ROME--knee'------------------
----------------'TTTTT-Rick Sanitarium'----------------
AS full spectrum surveillance and a full
blown EUGENICS authority unfolds
---even the candidates are a Skinner box
waiting to happen.
"Unless we can admit the 'UNTHINK-Abel'
has ALREADY been done to us ----we're finished."
ADMIT IT
-------------HUAC/ NUREMBERG 2012--------------
Linda Perry | 2.28.12 @ 8:00PM
Robert, I am going to assume you are speaking tongue in cheek about the "Moral certainty of Obamacare"! You are completely correct when you say that the health of very premature babies should not be weighed against the cost of care. However, two points I would like to make are: 1. a great majority of these premature births could be prevented in the first place with excellent prenatal care and good maternal nutrition. Midwives, an vastly under-utilized midlevel practitioner which specializes in preventative prenatal care, would serve this purpose well. 2. Women must have the choice of having prenatal testing- and it should be paid for by our healthcare. The testing should be as early, as accurate and as minimally invasive as possible. They have the right to know and make decisions about their pregnancy, since they are the ones that will have to live, day-to-day, taking care of a child with possibly severe needs. That does not mean that our government, or health insurers should have the right to deny care to these special needs babies. On the contrary, they are the citizens most in need of protection. If the idea is to save money, then provide good prenatal care, and provide incentives for mothers to nurse their children by giving them a real maternity leave that allows the to do that. I don't actually think any of our potential candidates are particularly interested in these issues, however, it is important public policy. How we treat our children is a reflection of who we are as a society.