More health care during pregnancy is good

Sometimes good ideas have a way of attracting unusual reactions and even harsh criticism. Take last week's decision by the Bush administration to classify a fetus as an unborn child for purposes of providing more health care.

Under the federally funded Children's Health Insurance Program, which is administered by state governments, pregnant women were unable to get coverage for themselves and their unborn babies. The hang-up was the federal government's definition of a fetus which, up till now, has prevented CHIP coverage.

By declaring the fetus to be an unborn child, CHIP programs can now provide the health care that is so important in those formative stages. However, it is up to each state to decide whether or not to provide this coverage.

There is little question that such care is important, both for mothers-to-be and their unborn children. Good prenatal care usually means healthier babies and fewer post-delivery complications for mothers. As a result, the cost of the prenatal care more than offsets the costs of caring for sick babies or a variety of problems for mothers generally associated with the lack of prenatal care.

The cost, then, of adding this option to the CHIP program is likely to be far less than the expense of health care for babies and mothers with problems who don't have access to adequate health care before the babies are born.

As the CHIP decision was announced, reactions came from both pro-life and pro-abortion groups.

The pro-life supporters said the decision signaled a move on the part of the Bush administration to set the stage for legal ramifications that might, in the future, make it harder to get an abortion.

The pro-abortion supporters said the decision was another step in the attempt to criminalize abortions.

Efforts to turn the CHIP decision into an abortion issue -- either pro-life or pro-abortion -- detracts from the importance of good health-care availability for pregnant mothers and their unborn children.

"Prenatal services can be a vital, lifelong determinant of health, and we should do everything we can to make this care available for all pregnant women," said Tommy Thompson, secretary of health and human services.

Surely those who debate the abortion issue can agree that the effort to make such care available to the largest number of women is a step in the right direction.