Mothers Need More than Just One Day

[polly7]

By Yifat Susskind

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

http://www.zcommunications.org/mothers-need-more-than-just-one-day-by-yifat-susskind

Excerpt: For starters, our governments would recognize that mothers sustain families and communities. They would make that job easier. Governments would preserve social services, for child care, food assistance, health care and more. They wouldn’t cut them from budgets, forcing mothers to pay the price for Wall Street’s catastrophic failures.

In communities around the world, it is women, and particularly mothers, who take care of most people. And when public services are slashed, it’s mothers who pick up the slack. When childcare services are slashed, mothers still care for children, but without help. When food assistance services are cut, mothers are still expected to feed their families. When access to health care is restricted, the responsibility to care for the sick falls on women.

Mothers have always been society’s default safety nets. But today’s budget cuts are pushing mothers to the breaking point.

In a world where mothers were really appreciated, women’s reproductive rights would be secure. We would all understand that women must have the freedom to decide whether and when to have children, and whether to end a pregnancy. A woman who chooses to become a mother would have the health care and support she needs for a safe pregnancy.

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