What does it mean to be a Republican “values voter?” Well, for sure, it means hating abortion and coming up with grotesque, rapey, lethal, cruel, absurd, unconstitutional (very, very unconstitutional), racist, regulations; tricking women into unwanted pregnancies; turning a blind eye to terrorism, and targeting vulnerable teens, while charging women with murder and defunding programs that prevent unwanted pregnancies (and thus reduce abortions), while spinning fairytales about the big profits realized by the doctors who risk their lives to help women choose when to become mothers.
But for all that the GOP cares a lot about unborn babies, they manifestly don’t give a shit about them after they’re born. It’s not just supporting child molesters for the Senate, either.
Last month, the GOP took health care away from 9,000,000 children. The first draft of their tax-plan took away credits from parents who adopted children whose parents had given them up after not having an abortion.
Now they’ve killed a GW Bush program that provides health care from birth to 2 years, funding nurses and social workers who help at-risk mothers.
The lapsed program that has received the least attention is also one of the most effective. The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program was launched as a pilot program by the Bush administration, which then signed it into law after it was implemented as legislation by a Democratic Congress in 2008. It is routinely held up as a model of evidence-based policymaking, because the law sets an outcome Congress wants, but leaves it to people on the ground to get there and prove that they got the result they promised.It began largely as a program involving nurses or social workers, but has expanded to other paraprofessionals who have been able to ease a new mom into the daunting world of parenting.
The program expired at the end of September due to congressional inaction and battles over its funding. Though MIECHV is relatively small, it’s part of a package of programs meant to help vulnerable children and families, along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which expired at the same time.
ANTI-ABORTION GOP CONGRESS SHRUGS AS PROGRAM THAT HELPS NEW MOTHERS EXPIRES
[Aída Chávez/The Intercept]