What Barack Obama Will Do

An Obama administration will do more than a McCain administration for the cause of life, by drastically reducing abortions through giving women and families the support and the tools they need to choose life. Barack Obama will continue to strive to make a life with dignity for all from the beginning to the end of life possible - by making sure health care is affordable, combating poverty, providing good paying jobs, and ensuring security in life's final years.

Support for Women and Families

• Sen. Obama supports paid maternity leave to make sure families won't lose their employment and much needed income from having a child.
• Sen. Obama supports legislation to allow 'sick-leave' to also cover one's sick children.
• Expand programs like the successful Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers. The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income expectant mothers and their families.
• Sen. Obama has committed to making investment in affordable daycare and supports a refundable Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit would allow families to receive a 50 percent credit on up to $3,000 of childcare.
• Sen. Obama will cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families and will cut middle class taxes three times as much as Sen. McCain.

Fatherhood and Responsibility

• Obama is a cosponsor of the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act, which encourages personal responsibility and includes provisions for domestic violence prevention and improved collection and distribution of child support.
• Listen to Senator Obama's groundbreaking Father's Day speech on fatherhood and personal responsibility here.

Health Care

• Obama is committed to signing health legislation by the end of his first term in office that will guarantee affordable healthcare for every American.
• Under the Obama health plan, no one would be denied health care coverage because of a pre-existing condition. He would change the bizarre practice of pregnancy being listed in many health coverage plans as a "pre-existing condition."
• Sen. Obama is a strong advocate for the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide health care to children in low-income families.

Tackling Poverty

• Obama will expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to help lift many families out of poverty. His plan will increase the number of working parents eligible for EITC benefits, increase the benefit available to parents who support their children through child support payments, and reduce the EITC marriage penalty.
• Obama supports Catholic Charities USA's stated goal to cut domestic poverty in half in ten years.
• Obama will make sure that full-time workers can earn a wage that allows them to raise their families and live with dignity. Obama will raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011 and index it to inflation.
• Senator Obama supports the expansion of the leading program that provides nutritional support for low-income pregnant women and their infants and children (WIC).

Supporting Adoption

• Sen. Obama has been a proponent of increased support for adoption agencies and an expanded adoption tax credit.

Late-Term Abortion

• Obama opposes late term abortions, with a clear exception for the mother's life and health:
  "I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."
  - Senator Obama in an interview with Relevant magazine, July 1, 2008

Sen. McCain has voted against measures that would support pregnant women and families that need it most:

• McCain voted against extending Medicaid coverage to pregnant women and infants up to one year of age with incomes below the Federal poverty line.
• Senator McCain voted twice against the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), one of the largest support programs for pregnant women and poor children, which would have provided health care to an additional 3.2 million children and continuing coverage for the more than 6 million children already dependent on the care.
• Senator McCain has opposed increases in funding to nutritional support program for pregnant women and infants (WIC) that has proven to be one of the most effective programs in supporting women to carry their pregnancies to term.
• McCain voted against increased funding for child care and does not have a plan to help families make child care affordable.
• Sen. McCain has voted to increase taxes on local small business nurseries and childcare providers.
• He has voted against minimum wage increases at least 19 times and voted to completely repeal the minimum wage in 45 states.