Amy Chai at WNHH FM: Start early to target addiction.
It’s not every Congressional candidate who urges voters to rethink the role of doulas.
Amy Chai is not every Congressional candidate.
That’s why she’s running for the Third U.S. Congressional District seat held by Democrat Rosa DeLauro, she said: She wants to bring a fresh perspective, and new ideas, to the campaign and to D.C.
Chai, a 58-year-old homeschooling advocate (she taught her two children at home for middle and high school) and a doctor specializing in addiction treatment, is running in the Nov. 8 general election on the Independent Party line. DeLauro is seeking a 16th two-year term. Also running are Republican Lesley DeNardis and Green Justin Paglino.
In a conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven,” Chai spoke at length about refocusing government’s and society’s efforts to combat substance abuse and addiction.
“We need politicians that understand science, that understand evidence,” she said.
That would help tackle addiction, Chai argued.
“Addiction is a pediatric disease,” she said: Because of their brain development, kids are at greatest risk of developing lifelong addiction problems between the ages of 9 and 17.
Helping them navigate trauma — and helping them to read — has been shown to help protect them from developing addictions, she said.
She has proposed a “Fourth Trimester” bill that would begin at birth with helping kids develop reading habits and help parents support them.
The bill includes extending three months of federal parental leave so parents can bond with their newborns. And it would pay for new moms to receive guidance in those crucial first three months from doulas. Doulas are mostly employed to help guide parents through delivery of their babies. Chai’s “fourth-trimester” doulas would “put their arms around” moms, inspire them to start reading to babies, and guiding them to “speak life” to their children rather than yelling at them.
Chai was asked how the government would pay for mass parental leave and doula programs. She said the government would save far more than it spends on such programs through the hospital, prison, school-discipline, and law enforcement costs avoided when fewer people grow up amid trauma and with addiction.
Describing her views as libertarian-leaning, Chai said she would also advocate spending less money on foreign military aid. Including in Ukraine. She would support non-military assistance only, she said.
“One of the things I’m not into is proxy wars,” Chai said. “I’m not into sending billions of dollars of weapons and having people die.”
She was asked whether refraining from arming Ukraine would lead to Russia taking over that nation and then moving onto other Eastern European nations formerly included in the Soviet Union. “I don’t think they’re going to be more expansionist” beyond pursuing the goal of establishing an “ethnic state” in Ukraine, she predicted.
DeLauro has supported codifying the right to abortion in a federal law in the wake of U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Chai said she takes a less “black-and-white” position on abortion: She would support a federal law that codifies the legality of “therapeutic” abortions to protect the life and health of the mother and covering cases of rape. Then she would let states decide on their own whether to permit “elective” abortions.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Congressional candidate Amy Chai on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”