ANN COULTER IS A STUPID, INTELLECTUALLY STUNTED, NARCISSISTIC DOUCHEBAG BITCH!
"Apart from the fact that we count - and try to save - all our babies, infant mortality is among the worst measures of a nation’s medical care because so much of it is tied to lifestyle choices, such as the choice to have children out of wedlock, as teenagers or while addicted to crack.
The main causes of infant mortality - aside from major birth defects - are prematurity and low birth-weight. And the main causes of low birth-weight are: smoking, illegitimacy and teenage births. Americans lead most of the developed world in all three categories. Oh, and thank you for that, Britney Spears!"
Ummm... would someone like to point out to me -SPECIFICALLY!- how "illegitimacy" is somehow tied to infant death?? WTF?!? I mean... does she even HEAR herself?? (And btw... Britney was neither a teenager, NOR unmarried when her boys were born. And furthermore... her kids are alive, and therefore, totally irrelevant to her stupid ass argument to begin with.)
I have some nominally-more-than-the-average ill children. The SICKEST of them was NOT born out of wedlock. And oh, by the way? THEY'RE ALL ALIVE. And three of them were decidedly illegitimate. Furthermore, in the field, as a CPS investigator, the VAST MAJORITY of babies I saw who died (and I have another rant about that, which I will put up on FB later, but for the most part, these babies died of DISEASE, not SIDS, SBS, or abuse, and NOT BIRTH DEFECTS, does she just make these things up in her head??) were living in a TWO PARENT HOUSEHOLD. In fact, in Montgomery County, in spite of the devastating degree of poverty that lays hidden amongst the trees up here, I would have to say that easily 80% of the families with whom I interacted were two parent families, and more than 3/4 of those were MARRIED parents, albeit often for the second, third, or fourth time.
MOREOVER, I have done a ridiculous amount of research on the subject of infant mortality, both perforce (we were required to do so for certain certifications at CPS), for my most recent PhD pursuit (Midwifery, Pregnancy, and Childbirth in Medieval England), and for personal edification: I have YET to come across a SINGLE PIECE OF MEDICAL EVIDENCE -or even a **suggestion** of medical evidence!- indicating that even .000001% of the child deaths in America could be ascribed to the fact that the child was born out of wedlock. NOT ONE.
*pant*rage*choler*GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*
Okay, I'm done. Sorry. I just occasionally get all fulled up on BULLSHIT RHETORIC and have to, you know... purge.
PS: Infant mortality in the US has always been ABYSMAL when compared to that of other developed countries. We rank THIRTIETH in the world; that means that 29 other countries -some of them *not* industrialized nations- have better rates than we do. And it's not because we try to save every baby that falls out of the womb, regardless of gestational age. We have ALWAYS ranked that low (or within a couple degrees of that; we were 28th in 1998), since the late 19th century. Difference being that while we were before always kind of stagnate, in the past decade, our infant mortality rates have gone UP, and again, it is NOT because we are attempting to save more pre-term births; in fact, we ARE saving more preterm births, have a better rate of survivial for preemies and micro-preemies than ever before. But more babies ARE being born early. Those numbers remain pretty much commensurate with each other and constant. In contrast, 200 years ago, the vast majority of couples having babies WERE MARRIED. (Note: Not so 500 years ago, incidentally; more mercantile, subsistence farmer, and lower class couples lived together in sin and had babies than not; not because they didn't want to get married, it just often worked out that way, and people accepted them as married in the eyes of God; it was also difficult, in many of the more remote areas, for these couples to find the appropriate clergy to marry them. Interestingly enough, rural infant mortality was WAY LOWER than that in the cities and boroughs of Europe in the 16th century. HMMMM. That's another story, though.) And yet, more than 300 babies died for every 1000 births 200 years ago (compared to our now roughly 7 deaths per every 1000 births; these are regarded as deaths that occur more than 28 days after birth until 12 months of age; some statistical data indicates it's until the age of 5, but the numbers remain largely unchanged in that event). DO YOUR HISTORY HOMEWORK, ANN. And quit talking through that ignorant blowhole in your head. Just sayin'.
/rant.