Political Quotes

“Today, children are born all over this country to mothers who have substance abuse problems. Their mothers are alcoholic or their mothers are drug addicts. These babies are born in hospitals, they are frequently underweight, they are frequently frail. Much money and effort is devoted to bringing them to health. These children do not meet any definition of child abuse, and probably they should not, but what happens is they are sent home from hospitals every day in this country and it is only a matter of time in so many instances until they return back to the hospital abused, bruised, beaten, and sometimes deceased. That is because we have not developed a system in this country to identify these children and intervene in their lives. The amendments that we put in this bill for the first time require the States to set up programs so that when these children are born to these addicted families that there is intervention, and the social workers can come in and meet with the mother and establish a safe plan of care.”