With Roe v Wade Overturned, Other "Pro-Family/Pro-Life" Issues Are Getting the Spotlight.

 One in particular is diapers (can't make all the women give birth and than not provide something, right?): 

Over the past 10 years, distribution at Doug Adair’s Nashville diaper bank has swelled from a couple of thousand diapers a year to nearly 3 million. Running the bank, Adair has learned and relearned the critical role diaper access plays for families. But it hasn’t always felt like most other people knew that. 

“I think more about diapers than anybody my age that is not wearing them — yet,” said Adair, a 68-year-old former mortgage banker turned diaper banker who got into this line of work because, in his words, he asked the second most expensive question he has ever asked in his life: “What can I do to help?”

Adair started Nashville Diaper Connection because there were only two places where families could get free diapers in Nashville in 2013, and one of them had a six-week waiting list. The city has no federal, state or local assistance program for diapers specifically, and families couldn’t use food stamps or WIC, the federal assistance program for women and children, to buy diapers. 

To people like Adair — who run banks with little support — diaper need, or a lack of sufficient diapers to keep babies dry and healthy, has felt invisible. But after years of going largely unaddressed by legislators across the country, something has started to shift. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the first-ever federally funded diaper distribution program in September 2022, sending more than $8 million in grants to states and tribes to help with their efforts to tackle diaper need; this year, it renewed the program. And state after state has started to pass bills exempting diapers from sales tax: Florida, Maryland, Colorado, Virginia, Texas, Iowa, Maine and North Dakota have all passed exemptions, and more are in the works. Nevada voters will take up the issue in November 2024. In Ohio, a bill unanimously passed the Senate. 

This "shift" has even involved politicians who ten years ago wouldn't have dreamed of entering this particular venue:

Republican Gov. Bill Lee proposed a program that would cover half the cost of diapers during the first two years of a baby’s life for children on TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program. Pending approval from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, it would likely go in effect in January 2024, TennCare told The 19th. 

If successful, the program — which Lee called “pro-life” and “pro-family” — would be a completely new approach to addressing diaper need. Adair was shocked when he first heard it.

“As you can imagine, my phone started lighting up. I’m naturally skeptical, I’m not overly generous to our political leaders,” he said. “I think it is a game changer if they can pull it off.”