Rick Santorum and the Parenting Students Act

Pennsylvania politicos in the know probably caught wind a few weeks back that Rick Santorum has signed onto a bill making its way through the United States sentate recently going by the name of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Students Act of 2005. The bill was read into the senate back in November, although an earlier version of the bill has been around for a while longer. It is currently in committee (health, education, labor and pensions).

As one could probably guess, the bill has some really good ideas wrapped around a couple of really creepy ones. The bill (S.1966, formally) would provide a pilot program to be offered at 200 colleges or universities and would fund an office to provide presumably non-clinical medical services and referrals to "parenting and prospective parenting students". Services would mean getting the schools to provide daycare, family housing, flexible academic scheduling, maternity and baby clothing, and baby food (including formula) to student parents. The schools could also choose to allow non-student school affiliates to partake of services as well.

All good things, right? Let me show you the bad: the office would be required to provide "pregnant and parenting resources" to students, though this is not fully defined. What is defined is that the office will be annually reviewed and it's performance assessed. Among other indicators, the office must provide "education concerning responsible parenting for mothers and fathers and education supporting healthy marriages." I'm all for healthy marriages, but i'm pretty sure my definition of healthy and Elizabeth Dole's definition vary slightly.

Finally, with the uber-creepy: A charming little ection that is related to the type of referrals that can be made and who they can be made for. Here's the direct text from the bill -

"An office shall make such referrals only to service providers that primarily
serve the following types of individuals:
(A) Parents
(B) Prospective parents awaiting adoption
(C) Women who are pregnant and plan on parenting or placing the child for adoption
(D) Parenting or prospective parenting couples who are married or who plan on marrying in order to provide a supportive environment for each other and their child."

In other words, c-ya Planned Parenthood. Also, buh-bye most major medical centers, as they are the ones who will actually perform abortions if the need is there. The only services students utilizing this office will be able to access are programs that will not allow abortion and will demand that the child be raised in a two-parent family home. Presumably, those two parents will have to be of opposite gender.

The kicker to all this? $10,000,000 for each fiscal year starting with 2006 and lasting until 2010. That's not a huge budget, especially in federal terms, but it is a direct spending of federal money to only go to certain service providers with a correct philosophy. Not that far removed from a faith-based inititative, one would assume. The fact that it is such a small budget actually speaks more about what these offices would be doing. 10 mill for 200 universities is $50,000 per university per year. In human resource terms, that's about one fairly low-paid full-time staffer (assuming, perhaps foolishly said staffer gets benefits) and maybe a closet somewhere in a health center. One guesses how much of the budget will go to office supplies.

This is not an attempt to get better healthcare to impoverished student women. It is, however, a very amusing way to test whether or not Elizabeth Cady Stanton really can spin in her grave.