No Excuse
This report, just out from Save The Children, should be a wake-up call for... well, just about everyone, except for the pharmacuedical and medical insurance companies, who politely request that you ignore the relevant data.
If you claim to be pro-life, and your motives are pure, and you are not calling for some form of all-encompassing health care, then you, my friend, are a tool of the corporations and the far-right politicians who do their bidding.
Consider the following list of nations and their infant mortality rates per 1000 live births in 2004:
The United States ranks lower than the rest of the industrialized world. We're tied with Hungary. We're below Cuba and Slovakia. Our system of health care allows more children to die than countries with a fraction of our resources, just to allow the health industry to rake in more money.
Need some more numbers? How about lifetime risk of maternal mortality, comparing the same countries?
Well, at least we beat Cuba in that category. Barely. Want to know a few other countries where mothers are less likely to die from complications of pregnancy? Kuwait (1 in 6,000). Serbia (1 in 4,500). Croatia (1 in 6,100). We're not in the same category as these countries. We rank far below them.
This is despicable. This is the United States, and we have more resources at our disposal than any other nation on Earth. We are allowing mothers and infants to die for failed political and economic ideology. Why should our babies die almost twice as often as babies in the Czech Republic? Why should pregnant women be almost four times more likely to die as expectant mothers in Slovakia? There's no excuse for it, and anyone who claims to love this country and what it stands for should feel an intense pang of shame over these embarrassing numbers.
7 infant mortalities out of 1,000 live births, by the way, translates to real numbers as over 28,700 dead infants in the United States, just in 2004. That is the human cost of corporate greed and the apathy of the electorate.
If you claim to be pro-life, and your motives are pure, and you are not calling for some form of all-encompassing health care, then you, my friend, are a tool of the corporations and the far-right politicians who do their bidding.
Consider the following list of nations and their infant mortality rates per 1000 live births in 2004:
Sweden - 3
Finland - 3
Norway - 4
Czech Republic - 4
Australia - 5
Canada - 5
United Kingdom - 5
Cuba - 6
Slovakia - 6
Hungary - 7
United States - 7
The United States ranks lower than the rest of the industrialized world. We're tied with Hungary. We're below Cuba and Slovakia. Our system of health care allows more children to die than countries with a fraction of our resources, just to allow the health industry to rake in more money.
Need some more numbers? How about lifetime risk of maternal mortality, comparing the same countries?
Sweden - 1 in 29,800
Slovakia - 1 in 19,800
Canada - 1 in 8,700
Finland - 1 in 8,200
Czech Republic - 1 in 7,700
Australia - 1 in 5,800
Hungary - 1 in 4,000
United Kingdom - 1 in 3,800
Norway - 1 in 2,900
United States - 1 in 2,500
Cuba - 1 in 1,600
Well, at least we beat Cuba in that category. Barely. Want to know a few other countries where mothers are less likely to die from complications of pregnancy? Kuwait (1 in 6,000). Serbia (1 in 4,500). Croatia (1 in 6,100). We're not in the same category as these countries. We rank far below them.
This is despicable. This is the United States, and we have more resources at our disposal than any other nation on Earth. We are allowing mothers and infants to die for failed political and economic ideology. Why should our babies die almost twice as often as babies in the Czech Republic? Why should pregnant women be almost four times more likely to die as expectant mothers in Slovakia? There's no excuse for it, and anyone who claims to love this country and what it stands for should feel an intense pang of shame over these embarrassing numbers.
7 infant mortalities out of 1,000 live births, by the way, translates to real numbers as over 28,700 dead infants in the United States, just in 2004. That is the human cost of corporate greed and the apathy of the electorate.
posted by Zafrod at 12:51 PM
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