Speaking of Dead Babies

In 2006, I first blogged about the issue of our infant mortality here in the United States.  I was recently reminded of this in a discussion I was having online regarding the pitiful state of our health care system.  But I was further reminded of the issue thanks to the Casey Anthony trial.  It wasn't so much the trial, it was the assholes who sent death threats to the Anthony family and went down to the court house to protest, cry, and call out "won't someone think of little Caylee."

First off, I don't know what motivates someone to go and act like an asshole at a court house.  Isn't there enough pain and human tragedy in this case, without creating further drama?

Secondly though, the biggie for me is that so many people, and 24 hour 'news' networks have nothing better to do than obsess about this single child dying, when for the fifth straight year that I have been watching this, the infant mortality rate in the United States has fallen again.  We now have 45 countries in the world that do a better job of keeping their babies alive than we do.

The radical right has continued to attack women's right to obtain an abortion.  Several states are now investigating miscarriages as murders, with potential criminal prosecutions for women who cannot prove that they naturally lost their baby to the satisfaction of the state.  Several more states have defunded Planned Parenthood, because you know cutting off women's access to STD screening, reproductive advice, and contraceptives makes the most sense right?

To me it seems like a completely insane logic where we wring our hands over the unfortunate death of a single child, or talk about abortion as if it is routine and taken too lightly by young mothers, yet we as a country are ignoring the fact that we are slipping year on year in our ability to keep our babies alive.

Despite spending more than double what most countries spend per capita on health care, our babies continue to die at an alarming rate thanks to lack of access to health care for all; and the situation is getting worse.  Yet no one talks about this sad fact.  The 'news' networks continue to spew the emotive crap about 'poor little Caylee' giving us round the clock coverage of the trial, what 'experts' think about the trial, what pundits think, what random members of the public think, and so on.  Yet no coverage regarding the thousands of babies who died unnecessarily during the same time period because in our country we don't give a shit about poor people.