I had a baby 6 months ago in Germany. Included in my public insurance policy was regular home visits from a midwife from the time I came home from the clinic to the time the baby's umbilical cord stump came off (about two weeks.)

The midwife helped me and my husband with all aspects of newborn care and new mother care. It was great!

German law requires these services be available at no cost to all new mothers, but new mothers are not required to participate. Also, the after birth midwife services are not as comprehensive as those described in this article, with help to age 2, but there are other government agencies that provide this kind of help at no cost, to anyone, regardless of income.

I think this US program is a great start, but it should be expanded to help ALL mothers, not just low-income ones.

As an American who lives in Munich and has a 6-month-old, I've noticed that a lot of the other respondents have made assumptions based on fundamental misunderstandings about German society in relation to work and the family. To correct some of the misunderstandings, I offer the following context:

1. Germany DOES already pay hard cash for kids. Kindergeld is currently set at 152 euro per month per child, paid monthly directly into the responsible parent's bank account. The amount is higher for 3 kids or over. There are further cash benefits for poor families (called Erziehungsgeld.) It's unlikely that offering more cash to people will result in more kids.

2. Germany already more or less forces women to leave their jobs for the 6 weeks before plus 8 weeks after a birth. As a result, employers are often hesitant to hire women of childbearing age. They get away with this discrimination if they don't do it too blatantly. (Mothers are also allowed to stay out of work for the first three years of their childrens' lives, and get their old or an equivalent job back afterwards.) My guess is that the Minister for Families is just trying to level that playing field with a requirement that men also take two months off work after a birth.

3. It's also very difficult at the moment for Germans to have a two-income family because of the pre-school childcare and school situation. There are way fewer places available for kids in pre-school childcare than kids who need it. Paying for an individual nanny or babysitter is obviously extremely expensive. The school day ends at around noon, and German school kids get a LOT of school vacation compared with American kids. This all makes it very difficult a family to have two full-time earners.

There are many reasons for the population problem in Germany. It's good that the government is finally working to solve them. The populace and the government both have what Americans would consider very old-fashioned notions about proper families. These attitudes will be harder to change than policy will be.

It's true that these laws could "allow health workers to refuse a whole lot more than emergency contraception."

What about psychiatric conditions requiring medication, for instance? An religious pharmacist could easily decide to send a patient away with an unfilled prescription and instructions to "pray about your problems" instead.

I have a feeling this is not the kind of scenario the writers and backers of these laws envision. The backers of these laws need to stop hiding their intentions. If they mean to target E.C., treatments resulting from stem cell technology, or whatever else, they need to come out and be specific about what's allowed and what's not in the realm of "right to refuse or refer treatment." We need to see their true colors. Are they harassing women, or just trying to protect a poor pharmacist who might get a bad conscience from doing his/her job?

Of course, what would really nip the problem in the bud is if the licensing organizations behind these professions would just draw up specific policies and hold their members to them if they want to retain their licenses.

OK, so now we have, on the one side, people like Dave Luckett, who apparently gets no respect in his job and wants everyone to realize that, OK, he's not claiming to BE God, but he's the next best thing, what with saving everybody's lives 'n all.

Then on the other hand, we've got pharmacists who think they ARE God, refusing to dispense reasonable doctor-prescribed medications to people who need them and have a right to have them.

Who woulda thunk that pharmacists were such hot shit??? Not me, no. Thanks for showing us all the light, Dave.

"My mom always tells young women that, when they start thinking about kids, to assume the majority of their salaries will have to go to childcare, healthcare and housework."

This kind of attitude, while practical and reality-based, still assumes that housework and childcare is the female parent's responsibility, and therefore the costs of hiring someone else to take care of them must be considered as a percentage of her salary.

WHY do we still figure how much comes out of a mother's salary to pay these things when she goes back to work after a birth? Why not figure the costs as a percentage of family income? Surely if the mother wants to go back to work as a matter of choice, for personal satisfaction or to further her career, the entire family has an interest in her welfare?