Parenting & Family Quote by Susan Collins

“Incumbent upon us” is Washington’s favorite way to make urgency sound bipartisan. Susan Collins reaches for that phrasing because it signals duty without sounding radical: not a demand, not a culture-war flare, but an obligation any “reasonable” lawmaker should accept. The line is built to travel well in a committee room and a press release, where the goal is less moral catharsis than legislative permission.

The specific intent is targeted: military women, postpartum, first year. That narrow framing does two things. It acknowledges a real policy blind spot (the postpartum window when complications spike and support often drops off), while also insulating the ask from the usual objections about cost or “special treatment.” By grounding it in the military, Collins wraps maternal health in the language of readiness, retention, and national responsibility. Care isn’t just compassionate; it’s part of the contract the state signs with service members.

The subtext is an indictment delivered in velvet: the system currently doesn’t meet these “unique needs,” and the consequences have been normalized. Military culture has historically been built around male bodies and uninterrupted availability; pregnancy and recovery expose the cracks in that design. Naming “the first year” is a quiet rebuke of minimal postpartum leave assumptions, insisting that childbirth is not a single event but a long medical and psychological timeline.

Contextually, the quote sits at the intersection of two politically safer themes: supporting troops and supporting mothers. Collins is using both to expand the category of what counts as “proper care” without having to litigate ideology. It’s policy advocacy disguised as consensus.