Baby Killers

The United States has high rates of premature births and of infant mortality.

From the New York Times of 5/3/12 regarding premature births—

“Although American hospitals excel at saving premature infants, the United States is similar to developing countries in the percentage of mothers who give birth before their children are due, the study’s chief author noted. It does worse than any Western European country and considerably worse than Japan or the Scandinavian countries… That stems from the unique American combination of many pregnant teenagers and many women older than 35 who are giving birth, sometimes to twins or triplets implanted after in vitro fertilization, the authors said. Twins and triplets are often deliberately delivered early by Caesarean section..Also, many American women of childbearing age have other risk factors for premature birth, like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure or smoking habits. And the many women who lack health insurance often do not see doctors early in their pregnancies…”

Here is the link to the World Health Organization report that was the source of this report. 

The United States also has high rates of infant mortality.

Again from the New York Times—

“According to a new analysis, the United States now ranks 41st in the world in terms of neonatal mortality, the death rate of infants less than one month old. The rate is higher in the United States than in, among others, Cuba, Slovakia, Croatia and all of Western Europe and Scandinavia.”

Where are so-called “pro-life” forces addressing these concerns? Where are they?

What they do instead is make it all worse.

Here in Texas, the state government and the state’s conservative voters support and pursue policies of hardship and death.

 The Associated Press reports that more than one million children in Texas lack health insurance—

“The analysis of official state and federal data by the non-partisan Center for Public Policy Priorities found that 1.2 million Texas children have neither private nor public health insurance….Almost 40 percent of Texas mothers received little or no prenatal care and one in seven babies were born premature, statistics show. The difference between being insured and uninsured is stark: 90 percent of insured kids are healthy, while only 58 percent of kids without insurance are considered healthy.”

Republicans in control of the Texas state government have passed a law preventing state funds for women’s health services at Planned Parenthood.

No provision has been made to provide these services elsewhere despite the great number of Texans without health insurance.

All our Republican leaders do in Texas is oppose efforts to expand health insurance coverage and block ways for women to get care.

This is not unlike what we are seeing from conservatives on the national level.

I don’t get how these people who enact these policies and support these policies live with themselves.