Those benefits include everything from simple brochures, to family-leave policies, dependent-care allowances and resource and referral services.

And I do think, yes, that pumping is a very poor substitute for a decent family-leave policy and that the availability of pumps has relieved employers and lawmakers of the obligation to implement structural change.

Poll after poll indicates overwhelming support for the idea of the job security and peace of mind that a family-leave policy would provide.

Mr. Dodd has also campaigned on the theme that education is crucial to both the state's and the nation's efforts to improve their economies, and he has stressed his work on child care, family-leave policies and expanding Federal aid for middle-class college students.

I think if the White House had gotten more letters supporting the national family-leave policy that was proposed, President Bush would not have vetoed it.

You miss the fundamental truth about family-leave policy, which is that it makes both human sense for today's working families and economic sense for American business.

Some companies that failed to include the care of sick relatives under family-leave policies framed years ago for child care have since amended them.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is the bill's chief sponsor, said individual companies with similar family-leave policies had saved the costs of replacing valued employees.

"A simple family-leave policy would have allowed any of us the few weeks necessary to see them through this medical crisis," she said.

His writ extends to the environment, global warming, the ozone layer, science, NASA, technology, defense contracts, wiring schools for computers, tobacco regulation, TV ratings, nuclear stockpiles in Russia, government efficiency, family-leave policies, and many other areas.