(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

So. Infant mortality. I'm sure I sound naive and sanctimonious and middle-class and White in my surprise and anger. Not being directly, personally affected by it, you read all these statistics about the results of racism, about mortgages and glass ceilings and whatever, and it all seems so abstract; and then one figure smacks you between the eyes like a shovel. Piles of dead babies tend to have that effect. That's what racism is, what sexism is, what war is, what it always has been. The most vulnerable human beings, like miner's canaries, tumbled into mass graves, dead of greed.

*takes a deep breath*

Meanwhile in Australia:

Forced to live in hunger: a study of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (infant mortality: 16.7) finds they can't afford to eat healthily - or sometimes at all. Researchers suggest short-term help (eg fruit and vegetable hampers) but also long-term change. Lemme see if I can find the full report online.

Comments

[jblum.livejournal.com]

Dead potential baby.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

That is a reasonable response - you can hold that birth is the bright line between "this is human" and "this isn't." That's a defensible, coherent position.

However, you may want to know that some of the pro-choice advocates (like Peter Singer, ref. above) are arguing that infanticide is the moral equivalent of abortion, and should be permitted. That is a pretty chilling position, as far as I'm concerned.

On a topical note, one very interesting thing is that the child mortality rates are calculated very differently by different countries - with the US having a relatively strict interpretation. There are many places where very-low birth weight babies are not counted as live births, while in the US they are, for instance.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating! Which countries?

Re: O RLY?

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Per US News & World Report (don't have a link handy), Germany and Austria were cited. However, I would just say that before comparing rates from different places, make sure that they're really the same thing.

YA RLY :)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Good point! Australia and the US use the same definition, so I'm confident about comparing ours. (Canada and the Nordic countries also use the same definition, and have lower infant mortality rates than the US.)