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It is clear, however, that neither Bush nor Jennings is serious about reducing abortion rates. What they are serious about is keeping our attention focused on the abortion issue while they act like the proverbial deadbeat dad and welfare queen spending taxpayer dollars for their pet projects instead of on the children they already have.

In fact, Florida does a poor job of providing for the children it already has. Florida is noted nationwide for unnecessary removal of children from loving parents and putting them into an overwhelmed, sometimes dangerous foster-care system. Has Florida already forgotten Rilya Wilson, the 5-year-old foster child who disappeared from her foster home? It took Florida 15 months before anyone in the state child welfare system even noticed.

Is Florida really ready to have more children to care for? Considering how Florida treats its older children, this should be a serious question. Under legislation dubbed the Road to Independence Act, Florida abandons large numbers of foster children the minute they turn 18. The result has been well-documented cases of homelessness, unemployment and illness. The governor's newly announced plan for a token increase in aid for older foster children isn't nearly enough.

The abortion issue is wonderful because it keeps people on both sides of the debate so tied up that our policy-makers can go about the business of abandoning pregnant women, children and working families. The governor, referring to the hot-line plan, and a claimed increase in the number of abortions each year, said, "It does trouble me that in a state as compassionate and caring as ours ... the number of abortions that takes place in our state grows."

Caring and compassionate to whom? Certainly not to Florida's children in foster care, or the significant number of parents who love those children but have been denied custody of them. Here's what $4 million could buy for those families:

• $600 a month rent subsidies for 555 families, so their children wouldn't be taken away because of bad housing.

• $100 a week day-care subsidies for 769 families, so their children wouldn't be taken away on a lack of supervision charges while their parents worked.

• Intensive Family Preservation Services interventions for 800 families on the brink of losing their children to foster care, so those children could safely remain in their own homes.

Florida also refuses to provide health care for all of its already existing children. The state has frozen enrollment into the state's child health insurance plan and disbanded its waiting list. As a result of new eligibility requirements and extremely limited enrollment periods, many of Florida's children just won't be able to get the health care they need.

Florida also limits access to prenatal care for low-income women, has opposed the pregnancy discrimination act, which would prohibit discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace, and does not support paid family and medical leave so that women who do carry their pregnancies to term can spend time with their children. Florida ranks 33rd in the nation for its infant mortality rate, and Florida's maternal mortality rate is among the highest in the nation. If Florida really cared, some of the $4 million might go to reducing these appalling death rates.

There are also things that the governor and lieutenant governor could support if they really wanted to reduce abortion rates: mandate and fully fund comprehensive sexuality education, and ensure that contraceptive services and supplies are available to all those who cannot afford them.

Many of the special interest groups likely to receive taxpayer dollars under the Bush-Jennings plan are known to provide biased counseling and inaccurate medical information to pregnant women. Giving away millions of dollars to these organizations is neither caring nor compassionate. It is, however, a brilliant distraction from Florida's failure to support the children it already has.

Lynn Paltrow is executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org), a national nonprofit group that promotes the health, welfare and civil rights of pregnant and parenting women. Contact her at LMPNYC@aol.com.

© 2005 Tallahassee Democrat and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.tallahassee.com

Boston Globe
The abortion diversion

By Lynn M. Paltrow | February 20, 2005

HOWARD DEAN is not wrong to say that his party ought to make a home for prolife Democrats. People committed to a country that truly honors women, mothers, and families can and will disagree about abortion.

But Democrats must make clear that outlawing abortion and expanding fetal rights pose significant threats not just to women who want to end their pregnancies but also to pregnant women and expectant fathers who hope to become parents. Increasingly, pregnant women who have no intention of ending their pregnancies face arrest, forced surgery, and punitive child welfare interventions based on antiabortion claims of fetal rights.

At 27 years old and 25 weeks pregnant, Angela Carder became critically ill. She, her family, and her attending physicians all agreed on treatment designed to keep her alive for as long as possible. Nevertheless, based on antiabortion, fetal-rights claims, a court ordered Carder to undergo a C-section, knowing the surgery could kill her. The surgery was performed. Carder not only lost her right to informed consent and bodily integrity, she lost her right to life. The surgery resulted in the death of both Carder and her fetus.

Democrats need to stop talking only about the right to end a pregnancy and start talking about the right to continue pregnancies without abusive state interventions disguised as fetal rights. In other words, antiabortion ideology hurts both those for and against abortion.

Amber and John Marlowe, a deeply religious couple who profoundly oppose abortion, found this out when Marlowe went into labor with their seventh wanted child. She did not believe she needed a C-section and did not want to subject herself or her unborn child to unnecessary surgery. The hospital disagreed with both mother and father, and using antiabortion arguments developed over the last 30 years, got a court order giving it custody of the fetus before, during, and after delivery, and the right to force Marlowe to undergo invasive surgery.

Before the order came down, the Marlowes fled to another hospital. There, Amber delivered a healthy baby naturally.

In yet another case, Washington, D.C., doctors sought a court order to force Ayesha Madyun to have a C-section. The doctors asserted that the fetus faced a 50 to 75 percent chance of infection if not delivered surgically. A judge, relying again on antiabortion fetal rights arguments, said, ''All that stood between the Madyun fetus and its independent existence, separate from its mother, was, put simply, a doctor's scalpel." The court granted the order. When the procedure was done, there was no evidence of infection.

Democrats must oppose the proposed antiabortion and fetal rights laws that undermine fetal health by subjecting pregnant women and unborn children to unnecessary surgery and deprive pregnant women of the right to informed consent, bodily integrity, and in some cases life itself.

All women, pro- and anti-choice, living in blue or red states, have more in common than polls might lead you to think. The overwhelming majority of women who have abortions also have children whom they will spend a lifetime caring for. Women are united by the fact that the United States is virtually the only industrialized nation that does not require any paid maternity leave. Similarly, millions of pregnant women, especially those who work part-time or for small companies, lack legal protection from workplace discrimination based on pregnancy. Democrats should talk about ending this bias, not ending their support for access to safe and legal abortions.

Democrats should expose how the abortion debate has been used to divert attention from Bush administration assaults on pregnant women, mothers, and families. While President Bush was signing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act into law and declaring his commitment to a culture of life, he was also deregulating coal burning power plants. These plants release significant amounts of mercury into the environment, which is especially poisonous to fetuses and children. The Democrats, instead of talking about how the latest cleverly worded antiabortion bill threatens a choice, should address the Bush administration's threat to the born and unborn through deregulation of polluters.

While President Bush was making it a federal crime to attack the fetus as if it exits separate from the pregnant woman carrying it, federal funding for the Violence Against Women Act was being reduced for programs designed to protect women, including pregnant women, from violence. The leading cause of maternal death in America is murder of pregnant women. Democrats should be talking about how fetuses can’t be protected in a culture that does not value or protect the women who carry them.

While President Bush was reinterpreting the State's Child Health Insurance Program to allow states to cover unborn children, 43 million Americans, including 8.5 million children, were without healthcare coverage and nearly 20 percent of children were living in poverty. Instead of considering compromising on abortion, Democrats should be uncompromising in their attacks of new antiabortion laws that keep us divided and unable to see how many families, regardless of their views on abortion, can no longer ensure their children's health and well-being.

In short, Democrats must start defending pregnant women and families rather than abortion.

Lynn M. Paltrow is executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/02/20/the_abortion_diversion?pg=full

www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org