Seven Quick Takes Friday – Mandates Women Can Actually Use

If we operate on the presumption that the government should provide assistance to its citizens (becauseit has a vested interest in their health and well being) and that the executive office can mandate anything it wants, then here are seven things that actually would help women (that we’re actually asking for):

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 Free heart disease medication. Heart disease is the #1 killer of women, not pregnancy. I bet they’d also have better peace of mind when going to work.

 -2-

Paid maternity leave and post-natal job security for all workers (even part-timers). FMLA is not enough. If the government itself can’t mandate this (but apparently, IUDs…), then create tax breaks for companies to actually see the benefit in providing this option for all parents. If you really want your daughters to have the same opportunities as your sons – children and a job at the same time – then this just makes more sense then telling them to either delay or just give up on having children.

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Firmer policies to encourage positive economic/market activity. You know what’s really a “pocketbook issue” – not entirely the health screenings covered by the insurance we’re all going to have – but the cost of gas/transportation, groceries, and housing.

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Fatherhood Initiative support. Every child brought into this world has a father. But when those men leave or are not in condition to best raise a child, the mothers also suffer. While studies show (stable) married parents provide the best outcomes for children, just telling couples to say I do won’t help. A marriage certificate will not magically make a man with issues suddenly support his family. And marriage incentives will not help a woman find a quality husband/father when she’s too busy working three jobs and lives in a drugs-on-the-corner neighborhood. So how about supporting programs that instill in men the habits and virtues needed to raise the children they sired?

-5-

Better protections against criminal activity. One of the primary arguments in favor of reproductive inhibitors is to allow for care for victims of incest, rape, abuse, etc. However, if all a doctor does is help the woman prevent or end the pregnancy, but does not call for the cops to go out and arrest the perpetrator IMMEDIATELY, what good does it do for a woman to not end the incest, rape, abuse, etc? A strong leader would say: “You hurt a woman in this way? You don’t get to hide. You’re going to jail.”

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Insurance coverage for NFP and NaProTechnology. If you’re going to cover artificial hormones and plastic, why not monitors and treatments that actually, treat gynecological problems instead of masking them.

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Actually solving the pay equity issue. Did everyone listening to Tuesday’s debate fail to question how offering free contraception directly leads to companies paying women better than 72 cents to the dollar? Plus, if companies would still pay a man a higher salary even after he took time off to be a stay-at-home dad, then the issue isn’t really about parenting; it’s about gender discrimination. Further, contraception does nothing for childless or menopausal women who are still making less than their male peers in the same job. Perhaps the money the government would have paid for contraception could go directly to the woman to use at her discretion.

Regardless of where you stand on the government’s role in mandating things for society, the bottom line is that a true pro-woman government mandate would be for society to improve itself so that contraception and abortion are the rare exception, not the rule, for women.

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