Friday, September 5, 2008

The Palins & Child Care

Thank you to Women's eNews for an excellent reflection by Tanya Melich on child-care issues raised by Palin's candidacy.

Read it at www.womensenews.org

"This child care issue was hot long before the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion," comments Melich, remembering when President Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development bill in late 1971, "... a genuine attempt to help the nearly 12 million mothers with children who were entering the work force."

By selecting a female running mate who has five children, some of them young, John McCain has raised the issue of who takes care of the kids and who pays to have them taken care of.

"The central question is about money," says Melich, wondering "...how do the Palins manage to pay for child care on a governor's salary of $125,000 and on her husband's lesser reported income."

She reminds us that Marilyn Quayle, "the social conservative who was also a hardworking lawyer," turned her party in the direction of accepting paid child care.

Whether private and public child care services should be federally aided is still an issue among Republicans.

Tanya Melich is author of The Republican War Against Women: An Insider's Report From Behind The Lines (Bantam, paper, revised, 1998; hardcover, 1996).

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