COUNTERPOINT: CHILDREN PAY FOR OUR LACK OF DOMESTIC POLICY

''Each of our children represents either a potential addition to the
productive capacity and the enlightened citizenship of the nation, or, if
allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive
forces of the community."

- -- Theodore Roosevelt

Thank you for your brilliant editorial "Suffering Children: What will our
leaders do to save them?" (Nov. 3), which recounts the tragic life story of
Eric Mitchell -- a tortured child, become teenage murderer.

Perhaps in the future, political candidates can be confronted with more
precise and rigorous questioning about their solutions to specific and
complex social problems. Imagine, for example, taking a few hours with
aspirants to political office to have them detail their policy response to
the following real-life scenario:

A woman reports to the emergency room of Hennepin County Medical Center
with abdominal pain. Tests reveal that she is pregnant and also positive
for cocaine. She is homeless, in a violent relationship and new to the Twin
Cities. She is referred to a substance abuse program for pregnant women but
does not follow through. One month later she is arrested for public
drunkenness and then released. Four months later, she gives birth to a
child at Hennepin Medical Center who is HIV positive, cocaine positive and
has fetal alcohol syndrome. The child is six weeks premature and is in
neonatal intensive care for one month. Records reveal that this is the
mother's third cocaine-exposed child and that she has lost custody of her
other children.

Now, candidate, offer us specific program/policy/approach to address each
element of this Gordian knot of human suffering.

What are you going to do about domestic violence? Are you going to
strengthen mandatory arrest and law enforcement approaches? How do we
protect the children in these cases?

Is in-migration of needy people to Minnesota a problem or not? Some studies
reveal that as many as half of our shelter population are folks recently
disembarked from another state. How will you work with the Minnesota
Supreme Court and other state governments to see that Minnesota is not left
carrying an unfair burden for fixing social problems born outside of our
state?

Shortage of affordable housing is a major problem in our state -- even for
the "working poor." At the same time, many landlords complain that the real
problem is "destructive tenants" who ruin it for decent people by driving
up costs and screening requirements. How will you mediate a reasoned,
balanced approach to this problem?

Who should undertake domestic responsibilities for those who won't or
can't? The private non-profit sector? Churches? State and local
governments? How will all these efforts be coordinated to ensure situations
like the one described above do not recur? That efforts are consistent and
not duplicated? Are we already doing enough or do we need to double our
efforts?

I did not hear anything but sound bites and slogans from the candidates in
the last election about any of these pressing social problems. The media
bears some responsibility for failing to query the candidates in enough
detail. But so do we, the public. We need real dialogue -- not throwaway
lines or prepackaged responses.

In the meantime, we are left with a little girl who has fetal alcohol
syndrome, HIV and a host of other medical problems. The real costs of care
and support over her lifetime will be in the millions of dollars (indeed,
are already approaching a half million). And she will suffer, perhaps
terribly. What are you going to do, politician? What are we going to do,
public? How can we prevent the suffering of any more children? Give me the
details, please.

- -- Mark S. Toogood, Roseville. Formerly a guardian ad litem (sic) child
advocate in Hennepin County and now executive director of the Fetal Alcohol
Coordinating Board for the state of Minnesota.

Checked-by: Richard Lake