For any set of data indicating women have a problem, there are conservatives claiming the data doesn’t exist or should be ignored. Regarding the Save the Children report (pdf link) (see my post below this one for info), Hindrocket of the conservative blog Power Line writes:
Hindrocket says “I always like to check the actual data,” but he doesn’t actually provide any data showing that the US does any better in world rankings if we measure “on a per-baby basis.” The World Health Organization’s website includes 1995 data (in Word format) for both “Lifetime Maternal Mortality Risk” (the measure Save the Children used) and “Maternal Mortality Ratio” (risk assessed “on a per-baby basis,” as Hindrocket prefers).
So is Hindrocket right? Nope. By the WHO’s measures (which include more countries than Save the Children’s – I think Save the Children was right to exclude some of those countries, as the data-gathering accuracy is questionable), the U.S. is 23rd in the world for “maternal mortality ratio,” and 26th in the world for “lifetime maternal mortality risk.” That is, the U.S. actually does just about the same regardless of which method is used. And according to the WHO’s numbers, even measured the way Hindrocket prefers, Sweden (#10) and Switzerland (#12) both are doing better than the United States.
(Note: In my first version of this post, I made some errors with the numbers in the above paragraph, which I’ve now corrected).
So Hindrocket – and his cheerleader Instapundit, who in a classic example of conservative “deny the problem” thinking writes “Save the children — from bogus claims!” – are both wrong on the facts. Whichever way you measure maternal mortality, the US isn’t doing well compared to countries like Sweden and Switzerland.
Hindrocket is also wrong in theory. Save the Children used “lifetime maternal mortality risk” not because they’re conspiring to make the US look bad (conservative paranoia is endless, isn’t it?), but because that is a standard figure used internationally, by the World Health Organization and many other groups.
Hindrocket says “assessing the risk on a per-baby basis… would be logical,” but he doesn’t support this bald statement with any reasoning. I think Hindrocket is mistaken; Save the Children’s experts made the correct and logical choice.
The purpose of Save the Children’s report is to measure factors that contribute to mother’s and children’s well-being. One important factor is whether a country’s health care system provides reproductive control for mothers, through education, access to birth control, and (although Save the Children diplomatically avoids discussing this element) access to abortion. In countries in which the health care system doesn’t provide women the ability to control when and how many children they have, mothers have birth earlier and more often, and both mothers and infants are more likely to die in the process.
Measuring only “per birth” maternal mortality, as Hindrocket suggests, is illogical because it can grossly underestimate the risk mothers face due to childbirth, and because it fails to measure the additional risk put on mothers when they don’t have access to reproductive control. In relatively low-birthrate countries (such as Sweden and, for that matter, the U.S.), this may not make much of a difference. But in high-birthrate countries, a lifetime risk assessment provides a much more realistic idea of how much risk mothers actually face.
Update: Maybe a model will make things clearer. (Models are oversimplified compared to reality, but they make some relationships clearer).
Imagine two countries, Access and Noaccess. Access encourages family planning with education and easily-available birth control. Noaccess is run by fundamentalists who have outlawed all forms of family planning. As a result, the average mother in Access has 1.2 children, whereas the average mother in Noaccess has 12 children.
As it happens, both countries have equally good “per birth” maternal mortality rates. But since Noaccess mothers give birth 10 times as often, they are ten times more likely to die in childbirth.
Under this model, which measure of maternal mortality provides a better idea of how well off mothers are? According to Hindrocket’s preferred “per birth” statistics, mothers are equally well-off in both countries. There is no reason, if we measure as Hindrocket wants us to, to say that Noaccess is doing any worse than Access.
In contrast, measuring the incidence of maternal mortality over a lifetime, as Save the Children does, correctly shows that mothers in Noaccess are ten times more likely to die in childbirth.
Okay, now let’s consider this logically.
- The purpose of Save the Children’s report is to measure differences between countries.
- Hindrocket’s measure utterly ignores an essential difference between countries like “Access” and “Noaccess.” “Lifetime maternal mortality risk” measures the same difference accurately.
- When measuring differences between countries, a statistic that measures differences is superior to one that ignores differences.
- Therefore, Save the Children is correct to measure using “lifetime maternal mortality risk,” rather than using Hindrocket’s method.
Any questions?.
But Hindrocket’s point is a valid one. Indeed, presumably, the way to have zero materal mortality is to have zero children. You can’t die in childbirth if you never give birth to a child. Every time a mother gives birth, she has risk “X” of dying. So, presumably, a given woman in a given country increases her risk to 2x, 3x, 4x, etc. or each additional child.
By the same token, it’s not surprising that countries that have a high incidence of abortion have lower mortality rates for mothers (although, obviously, not for babies) as countries where social norms and/or the medical climate make that more difficult.
If lack of access to birth control makes a woman more likely to die in childbirth in country X, shouldn’t the statistic we use to measure maternal mortality measure that difference? I say it should; Hindrocket says it shouldn’t.
Look, imagine two countries, Access and Noaccess. Access has a lot of access to birth control, so women control their reproduction as they please; the average mother has two children. Noaccess is run by religious fanatics who have outlawed all forms of family planning, so the average mother has 10 children.
Now suppose that both countries have an identical chance of maternal mortality “per birth.” What does this mean?
Well, it means that in reality, mothers are five times (or as you put it, “5X”) as likely to die in childbirth in Noaccess as in Access. Yet if we measure risk the way Hindrocket suggests – paying attention only to “per birth” risk – we would conclude that there’s no difference at all in maternal risk between Access and Noaccess.
Save the Children’s method shows that there’s a significant difference between Access (X) and Noaccess (5X). Hindrocket’s gives the illusion that there is no difference at all.
In what possible way would a measure that could ignore a five-times difference in risk be better or more logical?
Right. On the one hand, Amp seems to disagree with the “death rate per baby” measure. But then he says this:
“In countries in which the health care system doesn’t provide women the ability to control when and how many children they have, mothers have birth earlier and more often, and both mothers and infants are more likely to die in the process.”
Well, which is it? If having babies “more often” makes mothers “more likely to die,” that sounds to me like the number of babies born per women is quite relevant. Right?
Plus, I don’t know where you’re getting the figure that the US was “29th” on Maternal Mortality Ratio. The document you link doesn’t appear to provide rankings at all for that measure. It merely states each countries “maternal mortality ratio,” i.e., maternal deaths per 100,000 births. The number for the US in 1995 was 12. And I count only 16 countries that come in under 12 (leaving aside a few “countries” like Malta that don’t have enough births to count).
An aside: Where are you getting this notion that people (or blacks) in the U.S. don’t have “access” to birth control? Ever been in a gas station restroom? Maybe a lot of people in the U.S. don’t want to use birth control, but that’s their choice.
What it comes down to is whether you recognize that there are many, many factors correlated with maternal mortality or not. If you only compare the “per child” rate, you can simply ignore and dismiss all of the other problems that are occurring and leading to women’s deaths. You can ignore and dismiss the harms that lack of access to birth control and abortion can cause, for example.
But it isn’t a five times different in risk; it’s the same risk. We measure almost all social science data per unit rather than the aggregate.
Automobile accident fatalities are almost always looked at as “per 1000 miles driven” or some such rather than in aggregate.
We wouldn’t look at China and say that they are wealthier than, say, Sweden because their GDP is higher. We would look at GDP/capita instead to realize that China is in fact quite poor, just highly populated.
While your point about lack of access is valid, the measurement isn’t if we can’t isolate the problem. While I’m sure that abortion politics plays a role in why Americans have higher birth rates than, say, Sweden, there are all sorts of reasons why Americans have more kids. Some are demographic, some are social, some are medical, etc.
Let me posit an example: Country A has an average 3 childbirths per mother, per lifetime with a (made up) .002% chance of death per child, or a .006% lifetime risk. Country B has an average one childbirths per mother, per lifetime but a .006% chance of death per child, or a .006 lifetime risk. You’re saying those countries are identical?
**”An aside: Where are you getting this notion that people (or blacks) in the U.S. don’t have “access” to birth control? Ever been in a gas station restroom? Maybe a lot of people in the U.S. don’t want to use birth control, but that’s their choice.”***
Oh, good grief…
Joe, I got my count by telling Word to reorder the entries by the relevant statistic, and then counting how far down the United States was. And I miscounted. There are 23 countries that came in under 12 – not 28 as I originally thought. (I initially miscounted because I counted 5 countries that tied with the US at 12, but came “above” the US in alphabetical order, as being “above” the US – my bad!).
As I said in my post (and as you also point out here), this does have the possibility of miscounting by including countries that shouldn’t have been included; but that’s also true of the 25 countries that seem to be doing better than the US measured by lifetime mortality.
Amp, didja’ know that perfect infallible birth control is available in your local BP restroom ? Right next to the college diplomas and that creepy lookin’ bondage gear that measures your blood pressure for a buck. :p
Really, you Lefties need to stop complaining and look on the bright side more. And this whole confusion of Blacks with people ? Cut it out. No one’s fooled. :D
James, saying that we should measure “per unit” isn’t meaningful, because it just leaves us debating what is the proper unit: births or mothers? You’re saying that the unit is “births,” I’m saying “mothers.”
James writes:
Let me posit an example: Country A has an average 3 childbirths per mother, per lifetime with a (made up) .002% chance of death per child, or a .006% lifetime risk. Country B has an average one childbirths per mother, per lifetime but a .006% chance of death per child, or a .006 lifetime risk. You’re saying those countries are identical?
In terms of the likelihood of any individual mother dying during as a result of childbirth, the two countries are identical. In other terms, of course, they’re not identical; but if what you care about is the likelihood of a mother dying, obviously they are identical. .006% is equal to .006%.
When it comes to specific improvements to be made to each of those countries, of course the differences you’re talking about matter a lot. But when it comes to measuring how bad the mother-mortality problem is, both countries are equally badly off.
On the other hand, go back to my example of NoAccess and Access. Mothers in Noaccess have a 10X chance of dying in childbirth in their life, compared to mothers in Access. Are you saying there’s no difference between these two countries? Because that’s what your preferred measure says.
Joe wrote:
An aside: Where are you getting this notion that people (or blacks) in the U.S. don’t have “access” to birth control? Ever been in a gas station restroom? Maybe a lot of people in the U.S. don’t want to use birth control, but that’s their choice.
The only thing I’ve said about blacks and access is this: “In effect, measured by their access to high-quality health care, blacks in the US are living in a ‘developing nation,’ not an ‘industrialized nation.'”
I know you didn’t say anything directly about blacks and birth control, but that’s the clear implication of the following:
1) In your previous post, you point out that American whites have a very low maternal mortality rate, and that the real reason the overall American rate is higher than other industralized countries is because the black mortality rate is comparatively high.
2) Then, in the current post, you mention “access to birth control” several times as a key contributor to women having more children and thereby dying more often in childbirth.
So, putting 1 and 2 together, if American blacks are 1) dying more often in childbirth because of 2) having more children, you have clearly blamed that fact on, among other things, lack of access to birth control.
To which I say, huh? Who doesn’t have access to condoms, at the very least? Not that condoms are “perfect” or “infallible” (to quote Amy S.’s irrelevant response), but they do work most of the time and everyone has access to them, right? How is it the health care system’s fault if some people choose not to use condoms?
One more point: The US has a birth rate of about 14/1000 (fourteen new births per 1000 population). That is higher than Sweden or Switzerland (each at about 10/1000), and a bit higher than the Netherlands or Denmark (each a bit below 12/1000).
The bigger picture, however, is that the US should be considered a low-birth nation, just like those others. A nation like Niger has a birth rate of 50/1000, for instance. By any reasonable measure, the US is a low-birthrate nation.
Stats via the CIA World Factbook.
As for the general point, how about this example:
In Country A, people are at risk of dying in a car accident at the rate of .00001 per every mile driven. But people in Country A drive only 5,000 miles per year per person, which gives each person a .05 chance of dying in a car accident.
In Country B, people are at risk of dying at the rate of .000005 per every mile driven. But people in Country B drive an average 20,000 miles per year per person, which gives them a .1 chance of dying in a car accident.
Is it 1) helpful or 2) informative merely to put out the statistic that people in Country B are “twice as likely to die in a car accident” (i.e., by comparing the .1 figure to the .05 figure) while ignoring fact that people in Country B drive 4 times as many miles per person? Clearly not.
Bottom line, which is what Hindsight et al. were ignoring:
One, no matter which way you slice and dice it, the US is well down the list when it should be at the top given its vaunted medical facilities;
and Two, no matter whether it’s per birth or per lifetime, dead is dead for these poor mothers — shouldn’t we be concerned that our extremely expensive medical facilities let them die? And shouldn’t we do something about it?
Joe, what you’ve written is an illogical misreading of what I wrote.
1) I never said that the high infant or mortality rate among American blacks was due to a high birthrate; I said it was due to a lack of access to high-quality medical care.
2) I never said that there was a high birthrate among American blacks.
3) I never said that that high birthrate (which I never even said existed) was due to a lack of access to birth control in the US.
4) Although I did say that lack of access to birth control is a key factor, I never said it was the only factor, or that high birth mortality could never exist due to other factors.
Please stick to replying to what I write in the future, rather than replying to stuff I never said.
Joe writes:
Is it 1) helpful or 2) informative merely to put out the statistic that people in Country B are “twice as likely to die in a car accident” (i.e., by comparing the .1 figure to the .05 figure) while ignoring [the] fact that people in Country B drive 4 times as many miles per person? Clearly not.
First of all, the Save the Children report didn’t “merely… put out” one statistic. They considered a large number of statistics, including other statistics that do measure outcomes per bith (albeit for infants, not for mothers). To imply they just put out a single, contextless statistic is unfair.
Second of all, in your example, I’d say it depends upon the details. If the economy and infrastructure of country B is organized in such a way so that people essentially have no choice but to drive 4 times as much as they do in country A, then yes, I’d say the deathrate is the relevant statistic.
Part of what determines how likely women are to die in childbirth is whether the social, legal and economic factors in a country are organized to let them control their reproduction or not. When countries are organized in a way that doesn’t let women control their reproduction, that is dangerious; and the result is that women are more likely to die due to childbirth. It is both correct and appropriate that at least one of the many statistics Save the Children collected reflect that fact.
Finally, I don’t know why (some) people are spinning this as an anti-US thing. Although of course we can (and should) do better – especially for minority women – overall the US is one of the best countries for women. And a major reason for that is that women here control their birthrates (and as a result have a relatively low birthrate).
Here’s what I don’t understand: Why is it so important to conservatives that we NOT measure a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth?
Could any of my conservative visitors explain why you think Suzy’s risk of dying in childbirth in her life is an irrelevant statistic, which should never be measured?
If the right wingers would back up their talk…we wouldn’t have such a high infant mortality rate. I believe it puts their pro-life agenda in shambles. That is why they don’t want to use these numbers. They’re shameful. If we are the ruling super power in the world, shouldn’t our infants and mother mortality rates be among the top, too?
Ampersand writes:
Here’s what I don’t understand: Why is it so important to conservatives that we NOT measure a woman’s lifetime risk of dying in childbirth?
Could any of my conservative visitors explain why you think Suzy’s risk of dying in childbirth in her life is an irrelevant statistic, which should never be measured?
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I just don’t know man. I used to be a liberal. But let me try my best to go ahead and answer you. Why don’t we think Suzy’s risk of dying in childbirth in her life is relevant?
There is no Suzy here. There are only a mess of statistics. Statistics do not have predicitive value, especially mass statistics from a whole country are used. Let me repeat that. You cannot go from statistics->probability in one step. In fact going from data to a theory about the general principal involved requires something called science, which I’ll get to in a sec.
I want to finish about relevant statistics:
Known probabilities (for instance the 50% heads/tails of a coin toss) are usually borne out by statistics, if repeated enough times and taking place under control. However, as anyone of you must know (i hope), it doesn’t work the other way. Statistics do not necessarily reveal probabilities. If you have not heard this before it might take a sec, I know it shocked me at first when I got this. So here it is: once you have a statistic, that is when the science starts. You need to take data and start to piece it together with other data to get a better and better picture of what is really happening. Otherwise you will make mistakes in your understanding. Sometimes huge mistakes, such as believing in communism, or in practicing pacifism in the face of an expansionist facist menace, are made this way. You cannot take Feelings + Statistics and make Understanding to Act Upon. You must take all the statistics and start the process of building understanding. Ok so far?
So we have no Suzy here, and we have no probabilities of her lifetime risk. What he have is a whole damn mess of women who died during childbirth, compared to a vaguely specified total number of other women, and that’s all.
Now what IS relevant are the obvious questions: What is the total number of other women?
Are we comparing to all women, all births, all women who gave birth, etc? What exactly do we know?
In my experience, it is having this sort of “productive” thought process mocked and jeered by our fellow liberals that drove most people like me to the other side. But we still get suckered in by these sorts of productions because we still, despite our best efforts, have bleeding hearts. When we hear of a problem in America, or anywhere, we want to see how to fix it, and avoid having a huge mistake made by people who really wanted to make that mistake and used the problem as an excuse.
And, with that as the background, we noticed that in this study, the data is presented so that higher birthrates are part of the problem. Access to birth control and abortion are being pushed as the solution, in addition to socialized medical care for everyone.
Do you see how annoying that is for us? We got sucked in with examining how to make childbirth safer for women, and then we find out that the point is to have less babies and make on the “huge mistakes” I was mentioning with regard to our whole world-renowned medical system.
I hope I’ve said enough. In conclusion: we love Suzy. We hate misuse of data. It would be fine to measure womens total lifetime mortality, maybe even directly come out and correlate it to birthrate and access to abortion, if that interests you. DO NOT use the fact that having more babies puts women universally at more risk to exaggerate maternal mortality into a “Crisis” that will provoke more huge mistakes, such as govenment funded abortion availability, or socialized health care.
And I don’t speak for any conservatives who disagree with me on these things, of course.
**” When we hear of a problem in America, or anywhere, we want to see how to fix it, and avoid having a huge mistake made by people who really wanted to make that mistake and used the problem as an excuse.”**
Ahhh… so women LIKE dying in childbirth, and they turn out scads of babies with this goal in mind. Whew ! That tears it. I’m not a liberal any more, either. The logic here is inescapable.
Marc, thanks for the sensible comments – although I hope you’ll forgive my saying that you could have been as sensible without being quite so condesending. :-p
That said, I’m not sure who you think “sucked you in.” Save the Children is completely clear and aboveboard about what their report says and the solutions they advocate (and abortion isn’t one of those solutions, btw). And this blog hasn’t pulled a bait-and-switch either; from my first post on this subject I’ve said “improving women’s status is the surest route to improving infant (and mother) health.”
In other words, I feel as if we (liberals/lefties) have been perfectly straightforward and aboveboard, and now you’re reacting as if we’re trying to sneak something past you.
What is the total number of other women?
Are we comparing to all women, all births, all women who gave birth, etc? What exactly do we know?
If we’re talking about a statistic like “lifetime maternal mortality risk,” the number is not a comparison; it’s a statement of cause of death. Saying “in Guinea the lifetime maternal mortality risk is 1 in 7,” is just another way of saying “14% of women in Guinea who give birth during their lifetime die during childbirth.” It’s a morbidity statistic, in other words.
And, with that as the background, we noticed that in this study, the data is presented so that higher birthrates are part of the problem. Access to birth control and abortion are being pushed as the solution, in addition to socialized medical care for everyone.
Do you see how annoying that is for us?
Spell it out for me. Yes, the data is presented so that higher birthrates are part of the problem. That’s because higher birthrates are part of the problem.
In Niger, women don’t have the social power, the education or the access to birth control necessary to reduce their birthrate. As a result, Niger women (on average) give birth at very high rates, and this contributes to their high likelihood of dying in childbirth.
Now you’re annoyed that a commonly-used statistic in effect incorporates this fact. Why? I honestly don’t understand. It’s an important fact, especially when discussing the developing world (and if you read the Save the Children report, you know that’s the main thing it discusses), and it should be incorporated.
I guess I would understand the annoyance if the finding that Sweden, Denmark, et al have lower maternal mortality rates than the U.S. was just an artifact of that one statistic. Then you could argue that the statistic created the illusion of a disparity where no such disparity exists, and that would be annoying.
But that’s not the case; assuming the WHO statistics I linked to are accurate, Sweden et al have lower maternal mortality rates than the US regardless of which maternal mortality statistic is used to make the comparison.
So again, I don’t understand the annoyance.
As far as what’s being pushed as the solution, these are the solutions Save the Children are pushing (quoting from my first post on the subject):
The Save the Children report recommends increased international funding to improve women’s status in developing countries (both by providing economic opportunities and by increasing education for women and girls), and to make maternal and child health care – including “voluntary family planning services” – more available.
Perhaps you’re annoyed that liberals read Save the Children’s report and respond with liberal solutions. But that’s just the way politics works; I expect that libertarians will read it and react with libertarian (market-based) solutions, too. Even if that’s a good reason for you to be annoyed with liberals, it’s no reason to get annoyed at a perfectly legitimate statistic, that I can see.
* * *
In the end, with all due respect, you seem to be arguing that you don’t like this statistic because you think it may lead to people advocating solutions (such as access to abortion or socialized medicine) that you don’t think will work.
Well, in that case, I think you need to separate problem from solution. WHO’s and StC’s statistics are a measure of a problem, and it’s a problem that no legitimate social scientist in the world doubts the existance of. (Seriously; I challenge you to cite even one peer-reviewed paper arguing that there isn’t a problem of excess maternal morbidity in the developing world. No such paper exists, because the problem is far too well-documented to doubt it exists).
If you don’t like the solutions that leftists favor, that’s fine. I can respect that, although I think you’re mistaken.
But attacking the statistic isn’t attacking socialized medicine or abortion; it’s trying to avoid lefty solutions by pretending that the problem isn’t real or doesn’t exist. And I don’t think that’s a productive or worthwhile approach to the world.
If you don’t like lefty solutions, offer right-wing solutions. And we’ll argue it out (as we always do). But attacking the statistics showing that the problem exists – unless you have a legitimate argument showing that the statistic was improperly gathered or lacks meaning – is just, well, silly.
From one of my previous posts:
In response to studies showing a 40% of Ghanaian women die through childbirth Safe Motherhood Programme has been implemented by the Ghana Health Service by addressing women’s health education, antenatal care, supervised delivery and family planning. Reported in the Ghanaian Chronicle.
I seriously can’t wrap my mind around the idea that anyone would try to argue that this situation exists and/or that it is a serious problem. I mean, WTF?
As Amp said — don’t like the solutions, fine — come up with different solutions and we can debate about those. But to totally ignore what’s happening in the world is either pure ignorance, bigotry, or naivety. And talk about twisting stats around. Wow.
There is no Suzy? Wow. There WAS a Suzy. There were many Suzys and they are dead.
These stats represent real dead women. That you would allow your allegiance to a particular political wing determine how important women’s lives are makes me ill, Marc.
Given the central importance you ascribe to “medical care,” you might be interested in this Washington Monthly article. Here is a QUOTE:
In a recent issue of Health Affairs, three researchers from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examined scores of studies dating back to the 1970s on what factors cause people to die prematurely. They reported that genetic predispositions account for 30 percent of premature deaths; social circumstances, 15 percent; environmental exposures, 5 percent; behavioral patterns, 40 percent; and shortfalls in medical care, 10 percent. As they note, these proportions are easily misinterpreted. Ultimately, nearly everyone’s health is determined by a combination of factors. For example, while only about 2 percent of human diseases are caused by inherited genetic mutations alone, nearly everyone carries various genetic dispositions that, when combined with a hazardous environment or unhealthy lifestyle, can contribute to ill health. But this only underscores the relatively small role medicine plays in preventing premature death.
Consider the startling difference in mortality between Utah and Nevada. These two contiguous states are similar in demographics, climate, access to health care, and average income. Yet Nevada’s infant mortality rate is 40 percent higher than Utah’s, and Nevada adults face an increased likelihood of premature death. As health-care economists Victor Fuchs and Nathan Rosenberg have pointed out, it’s hard not to attribute much of that difference to the fact that 70 percent of Utah’s population follows the strictures of the Mormon Church, which requires abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, premarital sex, and divorce. Nevada, with its freewheeling, laissez-faire culture, has the highest incidence of smoking-related death in the country; Utah the lowest. Utah has the nation’s highest birthrate, but the lowest incidence of unwed teenage mothers. Culture and behavior seem to trump access to health care in improving human life span.
Similarly, when comparing life expectancy in the United States to other countries, it becomes clear that the vast sums we spend on health care buy very little health. The roughly $4,500 per person the United States spends annually on health care far outpaces any other country. Yet three-fourths of developed countries outrank America in life expectancy and infant mortality. Indeed, for all our high-tech medicine, Jamaican seniors outlive American seniors. According to the World Health Organization, life expectancy at age 65 is roughly equal, and at 85 it’s longer in Jamaica. An argument for medical marijuana? No, it’s an argument for walking. Dr. Denise Eldemire of the University of West Indies notes that 60 percent of Jamaica’s elderly live in rural areas, where “walking is the only reliable means of transport.” According to her studies, 78 percent of Jamaican elders walk daily. By contrast, just 60 percent of the entire U.S. adult population exercises at all.
THIS IS THE END OF THE QUOTE
All that’s well and good, but at the end of the day, medicine is one’s last line of defense when enviroment and behavior, for a multitude of reasons, cannot help you. With that in mind, I wonder why this article quoted by Joe has nothing to say about the approach to healthcare by the countries in question. Is it for-profit or governement sponsored. Obviously this would be a major factor in how effective medicine was, not to mention medicine’s influence on those Rightie sacred cows, “behavior choice” and “enviroment choice.”
For an example close to my heart, here’s some comments from Sidney Wolfe on the subject:
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1274
“…A study by researchers from Harvard Medical School and Public Citizen, published in the JAMA three years ago, found that for-profit HMOs scored lower on all 14 measures of quality of medical care than not-for-profit HMOs. In for-profit plans, toddlers and adolescents were 12 percent less likely to get immunizations; women were 8 percent less likely to receive mammograms, 6 percent less likely to get early prenatal care, 5 percent less likely to get postpartum checkups and 10 percent less likely to get pap smears. Twenty-seven percent fewer diabetics got the eye care they needed to prevent blindness, and heart attack patients were 16 percent less likely to get life-saving beta blocker drugs. In that study, care for the sickest patients – diabetics and heart attack survivors – suffered most in for-profit plans. The McMaster study confirms that the most vulnerable – in this case patients with end-stage kidney disease – are significantly more likely to die when for-profit dialysis centers provide their care.
Since 1989, the number of uninsured has increased from 33 million to 41 million. The push for profit is driving down quality, demoralizing doctors and nurses, discouraging research and teaching, and, as shown in the study being discussed here, causing the deaths of many people each year. To make matters even worse, health costs are again rising extremely rapidly. It is time to reconsider non-profit, single-payer, national health insurance and eventually, the return to a not-for-profit system of delivering health services.”
Hey Ampersand, thanks for such a thoughtful response. I apologize for my tone in that post, you’re right it defintely could have been less condescending – on the other hand, based on the responses from Amy S. and Tish, I think it may have been just right for some parts of the intended audience here.
Why do liberals, especially women, do this thing of convincing themselves I am sexist or racist or baby killing or whatever when I try to talk statistics with them? I made very clear that I was raised liberal, love small animals and children, value and respect all people, etc. I mean seriously, what the hell?
Anyways, if I could just respond to some of the good points you made:
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In the end, with all due respect, you seem to be arguing that you don’t like this statistic because you think it may lead to people advocating solutions (such as access to abortion or socialized medicine) that you don’t think will work.
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I can definitely see how you would think that, and I’m glad you brought it up. I want to be clear that the existence of a statistic of total maternal mortality is fine to have, as I said before. But do you see that by including that statistic instead of per-birth mortality in that study, the statistic directly makes having more babies into a health threat to women? And punishes countries that still have growing population rates? Just take my word for it, that pisses people off. The fact is that having babies is dangerous. But this statistic seems like a food poisoning statistic that is per lifetime instead of per meal – punishes countries that eat more, see?
WHOA… here is another example of how people like Amy S just don’t add anything to a productive thought process. She said “Since 1989, the number of uninsured has increased from 33 million to 41 million.” The VERY NEXT SENTENCE, with no intervening wisps of thought at all, is that we need a single payer system. Do you see how there is no statement of problem, theory of solution, then proof? Just Problem, misunderstood statistic, then Feeling?
It took me literally twenty seconds to find this for you:
(http://www.census.gov/statab/www/poppart.html)
Resident Population 1990: 248.7 million
Resident Population 2000: 281.4 million
33 mil / 248.7 mil = 13.3 %
41 mil / 281.4 mil = 14.6 %
14.6% – 13.3% = 1.3% Change in population insured
BOY WHAT A HUGE CAUSE AND EFFECT THAT PROVES!
Oh and your numbers were from 1989 to presumably 2002 or 2003, so the population numbers would have been smaller and bigger respectively, which probably would bring the percentage changed in uninsured DOWN TO ZERO CHANGE.
Ok. I realize I just got excited at the computer here since my friends are laughing at me, and I apologize for the condescension. But I didn’t just “make an argument you disagree with”. I just showed that your data didn’t exist. Ampersand I’m sure will agree with me that this is as good an example as any of what I was talking about:
Amy took a statistic she didn’t bother to understand, attached it to a rant about a problem (people dying) that is ever-present in the human condition, and pushed a possibly disasterous solution on us as if disagreeing means we want people to die. Are you going to just insult my morals now?
Sorry, got distracted. Back to Ampersand:
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But attacking the statistic isn’t attacking socialized medicine or abortion; it’s trying to avoid lefty solutions by pretending that the problem isn’t real or doesn’t exist. And I don’t think that’s a productive or worthwhile approach to the world.
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Well there you go man. I am NOT pretending the problem doesn’t exist. I am laughing with annoyance at people who look at a huge, omni-present fact of life (women die, including in childbirth), rub some numbers together, and then throw their leftist solution at me, as if I am a mysoginist or against “Saving the Children” if I have a problem with it.
WOMEN DIE IN CHILDBIRTH. So lets measure all the variables with some precision, and then lets test out various solutions or take studies of where the solutions are in practice, and try to figure out what works huh? And come right out and say, if you want to, that no women would die in childbirth if there were no births. But don’t hide that grotesque idea in a “Save the Children” study. Do you see now, the cause of the annoyance?
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If you don’t like lefty solutions, offer right-wing solutions. And we’ll argue it out (as we always do). But attacking the statistics
—
In this case, I am not offering a solution of any wing. I am offering a warning that you have to understand the problem before offering a solution.
Just as Amy did again above with the insured, it looks like the step of making sure the problem is understood never happens here.
Also thank you so much Ampersand for responding to me, it has been essentially my whole life that I’ve waited for a reasonable liberal intellectual response to anything I’ve said … seriously it does mean a lot to me. What do you think about that uninsured precentage thing? I mean, does that bother you at all, that she was so totally wrong? And I know she was quoting someone else, meaning that way of thinking is wide spread..
Take care
Marc
You’re awfully busy insisting out one side of your mouth how you “love” us, Marc. While out the other, you are so busy patronizing (“it took me twenty seconds to find this for you”) that you paid virtually no attention to my post. First of all, what I quoted (no, it wasn’t mine, it was from Sidney Wolfe, an MD who works on behalf of Public Citizen) was an article from Public Citizen’s newsletter, *Health Watch*, that quoted a study that you can link to in that self-same article. Try it, I’m sure it won’t take you more than twenty seconds. :p
Your census figures have, near as I can tell, nothing to do with the problem at hand. Especially considering that not everyone filled out the census and that population grew since 1989. And if you, personally, know of no one who has lost, or fears losing, insurance (or why this is a serious fear), I envy you. You must have a damned easy life and be surrounded only by others that do as well.
I notice you don’t seem to pay any attention to the study Wolfe quoted and the percentages of people covered by for-profit systems that don’t get necessary care. But I guess you’ll just argue that those numbers are the wrong perspective or yadda yadda yadda as well. Hear no evil, eh ?
My belief (and the beliefs of millions of others) that we need single-payer healthcare in the U.S. is based on a simple fact: Healthcare should be guaranteed for all citzens, no matter how much they make, where they work, what their illnesses are, nor how old they are. My advice to you is to spend a few more precious seconds of your time some day researching why so many people feel that way. Unless you’re afraid to get off your oh-so pious cloud.
P.S.–
FEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLIIIIIIIINGSSS
Whoa whoa whoa
FEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLIIIIIIIINGSSSS
(Sorry, Amp. I couldn’t resist.)
Well there you go man. I am NOT pretending the problem doesn’t exist. I am laughing with annoyance at people who look at a huge, omni-present fact of life (women die, including in childbirth), rub some numbers together, and then throw their leftist solution at me, as if I am a mysoginist or against “Saving the Children” if I have a problem with it.
WOMEN DIE IN CHILDBIRTH. So lets measure all the variables with some precision, and then lets test out various solutions or take studies of where the solutions are in practice, and try to figure out what works huh? And come right out and say, if you want to, that no women would die in childbirth if there were no births. But don’t hide that grotesque idea in a “Save the Children” study. Do you see now, the cause of the annoyance?
You seem to have very little ability to actually understand what “Save the Children,” feminists, and other leftists organizations, institutions, and people — not to mention the women who are actually at risk of dying — are saying. You want to pretend that “leftists” are “hiding behind stats” — but it is you who is refusing to look behind the stats.
This isn’t about “don’t have children, then you won’t be at risk of dying.” No one is saying that, not even close. You simply want to twist “access to birth control and abortion” into that sentiment, but no amount of twisting in the world will allow for that leap in logic.
This isn’t about “women want to have children, but lefties don’t want them too — so let’s use the risk factor to keep them from having babies.” This is about women who want access to birth control and abortion and are denied that access. This is about women who want to have fewer children. And who want better health care and security for themselves and the children they do have and will have.
Save the Children — as well as “lefty” and feminist supporters of this and similar groups — are adamently against forced birth control or forced abortion — but they are for access to such things for the women who want them.
Why don’t you simply come out and say what you mean, “I can’t imagine that women wouldn’t want children, children, and more children, regardless of risk — therefore “lefties” who advocate for things like birth control and abortion are trying to force them on women.”
Regardless, the point is, the mortality rate for women due to birth is astronomical in many countries. ONE (get it, ONE, not all) reason is lack of access to birth control and abortion. Therefore, ONE of the solutions must be access to and education about birth control and abortion. That doesn’t mean we don’t look at other solutions to deal with the other problems.
I want to be clear that the existence of a statistic of total maternal mortality is fine to have, as I said before. But do you see that by including that statistic instead of per-birth mortality in that study, the statistic directly makes having more babies into a health threat to women? And punishes countries that still have growing population rates? Just take my word for it, that pisses people off. The fact is that having babies is dangerous. But this statistic seems like a food poisoning statistic that is per lifetime instead of per meal – punishes countries that eat more, see?
So many problems in this one little paragraph, so little time to address them all. Let’s start at the beginning.
1.) Amp already addressed the fact that measuring by “per birth mortality” simply doesn’t change the total risk ratio significantly. It’s in his post — really, go read it.
2.) You are assuming that women in countries with a “growing population” want to be having all these children. That’s part of your problem — you’d rather look at the statistics and not the real people behind them. This is not, in any way whatsoever, no matter how much you want to twist it, about forcing women to have fewer children than they want — it’s about allowing them the ability to control the number of children they have — whether that be 0, 1, or 20.
So lets measure all the variables with some precision, and then lets test out various solutions or take studies of where the solutions are in practice, and try to figure out what works huh?
[Insult deleted by Amp] this has already occurred. It’s been occurring. Solutions have been implemented in a few lucky places. And guess what — they WORKED!!!!!!!
Amy –
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Your census figures have, near as I can tell, nothing to do with the problem at hand. Especially considering that not everyone filled out the census and that population grew since 1989. And if you, personally, know of no one who has lost, or fears losing, insurance (or why this is a serious fear), I envy you. You must have a damned easy life and be surrounded only by others that do as well.
—
Ok look, just drop it. I pointed out an extremely clear problem in your outlook (ie by your numbers, there is no percentage change in the uninsured…) and you are coming back and insulting both me and my caring again. Why do you even mention numbers, or quote them, if it’s just a prop? The “problem at hand” was your inability or unwillingness to make sure you understand the details of a problem before you throw a solution at it. Everyone agrees that we’d like everyone to be insured, it just may not be possible to create that situation through taxes right now. We only disagree on the facts, not the caring or morals…
But I have to say, I do have uninsured (or at this point, more like under-insured) people in my family and friends. I have been very lucky to have been covered through my childhood by my BC/BS Federal insurance which my father, among millions of others, receives as a federal employee. Hardly a cushy life but I am not ashamed of it, nor do I understand what you mean about these “others” I’ve been surrounded with. All the liberals I’ve ever met (including in my own family) are wealthier than us, and surround themselves with people of the same views. What do you get out of pretending to be poorer than me? Do you get “poor” points in an argument or something? I mean for Christ’s sakes, we’re like the first generation in our family to have insurance… we got to the point of owning a house and becoming healthily middle class when I was 5, my brother even grew up poor! oh why am I even bothering, everything I say you just attack me personally as if you had some picture of the sort of person who would disagree with you, and you feel free to attack that picture. Not healthy.
Bean –
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You are assuming that women in countries with a “growing population” want to be having all these children. That’s part of your problem — you’d rather look at the statistics and not the real people behind them. This is not, in any way whatsoever, no matter how much you want to twist it, about forcing women to have fewer children than they want — it’s about allowing them the ability to control the number of children they have — whether that be 0, 1, or 20
—
Ok let’s see some polls. How many children to women want in these countries compared to how many they actually have, and how much they feel they can control that outcome. Are you sure the desire to control their birthrate is distributed heavily among the women who lack that control? It might be, I’m just saying that would be a good statistic right now, see who is really speaking for whom here. Don’t insult me for asking.
Also to bean –
In an earlier post you mentioned the Ghana maternal death rate, which I agree is terrible. It was the attack on America that brought me here, you can respect that I hope? That I agree that a 40% death rate of Ghanaian mothers is terrible?
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this is about women who want access to birth control and abortion and are denied that access. This is about women who want to have fewer children. And who want better health care and security for themselves and the children they do have and will have.
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Well I can definitely get behind access to condoms and the pill as birth control, and they are definitely available in America. No one is being denied them legally here, it’s a market. I don’t think any conservatives came to this site, via this article, because they disagree with any of that. You realize this, right?
To []
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[insult deleted by Amp…]you’d see that this has already occurred. It’s been occurring. Solutions have been implemented in a few lucky places. And guess what — they WORKED!!!!!!!
—
[Insult deleted by Amp]
Second of all, where? Let’s look at the results of some applications here. I am listening. Because when it comes to the more socialist EU states, there is a lot of disagreement on whether the path they have chosen is working over all, and a lot of ways to look at it. If it turns out that the EU survives and those countries continue to prosper on their current course for 20years, I will definitely change my opinion then, but there are many reasons to believe that their more socialist approaches will collapse.
I noticed no responses to Joe’s quite informative post. Did that info about Utah and Nevada and the culture in neighboring states having a huge effect on mortality just slide by you guys or what? Doesn’t interest anyone here?
Anyway, sorry to bother you all, weird how I found my way to posting here. I will pretty soon leave you all alone (after reading replies), although if you enjoy having my sort of opposing perpectives on your articles aired here, please do let me know.
Marc
Marc, I’ll be blunt: I don’t give a flying leap what “percentage” 41 million constitutes. It’s 41 million too many Americans without insurance. Your attempt to minimize or devalue the figure is bullshit that anyone with half an eye can see through. Case closed.
As for your gaslighting act, spare me. And while you’re at it, spare me and the other feminist women in this thead your thinly veiled insults against our intellect, our mental state, our (in)ability to keep our “feelings” on a short enough rein to suit you, and so on. I’ve got news for you: We’ve heard it a million times, and it’s no more welcome, nor deserving of serious consideration, on the millionth-and-first go-round.
Clear ?
Also thank you so much Ampersand for responding to me, it has been essentially my whole life that I’ve waited for a reasonable liberal intellectual response to anything I’ve said … seriously it does mean a lot to me.
Marc, if you want to have respectful political debates, you have to stop making comments like “people like Amy S just don’t add anything to a productive thought process” (what an unbelievably mean-spirited and rude thing for you to say!). Don’t say “she started it,” either. Either you genuinely want to have polite exchanges, in which case you should be civil yourself, or you don’t, in which case you shouldn’t complain when people are uncivil to you.
Currently, you’re adding fuel to the flamewar even as you complain that liberals aren’t “reasonable” enough in their responses to you. Take some responsibility for yourself! You’re part of the problem you’re complaining about. Until you start being part of the solution, you have no credibility when complaining about Amy or anyone else here.
Why do liberals, especially women, do this thing of convincing themselves I am sexist or racist or baby killing or whatever when I try to talk statistics with them?
Well, I wasn’t going to address this, but since you specifically asked… My guess is, it’s a response to how condesending you are when you talk statistics. When a man is super-condesending correcting a woman’s statistics, it’s quite sensible of women to wonder if he might be a sexist.
What do you think about that uninsured precentage thing? I mean, does that bother you at all, that she was so totally wrong? And I know she was quoting someone else, meaning that way of thinking is wide spread..
You’re correct about the statistical question; per capita, the uninsured population is apparently stable in whatever time period is covered.
But since the central point of the article you were criticizing was not “the number of uninsured are growing,” in effect you’re focusing on a tangental statistical error. I think a more substantial approach would have been to focus on the article’s main argument instead.
Unless I’m mistaken, you also seem to be implying that liberals are especially likely to make statistical errors. I think that sort of partisan thinking is mistaken; there are countless examples of right-wingers messing up statistics too (haven’t you been following the John Lott case?). To claim that statistical errors are found only, or mainly, on one side of the political aisle is just silly.
Regarding the Save the Children report, I’m not sure you’ve understood the main argument of that report, either. Their main point wasn’t that the US sucks; on the contrary, they make it clear that the US does very well, by world standards. Their main point was to discuss and quantify the enourmous gulf between the developing and industrial world.
If you think the Save the Children report was about the US, then you’re mistaken.
So lets measure all the variables with some precision, and then lets test out various solutions or take studies of where the solutions are in practice, and try to figure out what works huh? And come right out and say, if you want to, that no women would die in childbirth if there were no births. But don’t hide that grotesque idea in a “Save the Children” study.
It’s bad form to criticize people for a “grotesque idea” they aren’t actually advocating.
As for the rest, take a look around the world. Show me a single country where women have a high degree of access to education, jobs, and birth control and yet choose to have birth rates of 40 or 50 births per 1000 population (for comparison’s sake, the USA has about 14/1000). It’s a consistant and well-documented pattern; in every society, when women gain the social and economic power to control their own reproduction, the result is a relatively low birthrate. (Keep in mind that the US is a low-birthrate country, by world standards).
As far as measuring all the variables with some precision, it’s true that these things aren’t measured as precisely as social scientists would prefer. But the differences between developing countries and industrial countries are so huge, that it’s not plausible that they’re simply the result of mismeasurement. Plus, how are you going to fund the studies necessary to measure variables more precisely? The people who work for WHO and Save the Children aren’t stupid, Marc; but they have finite resources, and they have to decide how those resources are best spent. Sometimes more research isn’t the most rational choice when options are limited.
But do you see that by including that statistic instead of per-birth mortality in that study, the statistic directly makes having more babies into a health threat to women?
Having more babies is a direct health threat to women, Marc. That’s just a medical fact; having ten babies is a much greater medical risk than having just one or two. What’s wrong with acknowleging that?
In this case, I am not offering a solution of any wing. I am offering a warning that you have to understand the problem before offering a solution.
Frankly, I think the problem is fairly well understood – well enough understood so that advocating certain solutions (such as Save the Children’s recommendations) makes sense. How much of the relevant literature have you read, Marc? What specific areas do you think are not well enough understood? And why, specifically, do you object to the approach to the problem Save the Children suggests?
You wrote that “It was the attack on America that brought me here.” What attack on America?
As for Joe’s post, all we’ve been talking about – over and over again – is how cultural factors affect birth rates and maternal mortality. When I say that it makes a difference how much education women have, that’s a cultural factor.
Anyhow, Marc, you’re welcome to continue posting here or not, as you please. (If I don’t want you posting here, I’ll tell you so.)
Marc,
Tishie here. You don’t have to “try” to talk statistics with me. I am a researcher. I use, report, and am actually paid to teach statistics on a nearly daily basis. My objections are not with the use of statistics, but with your apparent need to pretend the statistics are simply numbers to debate, representative of nothing important.
Having more babies DOES put women at higher risk. More babies, more risk. That isn’t some magical statistical maneuver or a liberal conspiracy. It is simple addition. Yes, we want to make each birth safer of course, but the fact is, there will always be risk associated with childbirth. Period. Women who have lots of babies have lots of risk. I think we can agree that childbirth needs to be safer… but I also believe that women should have greater access to reproductive control. No one here wants to force women to stop having babies, but as long as there is a cultural pressure to let every ejaculation end in childbirth, and as long as RELIABLE measures to prevent births aren’t freely available to all women, the problem is exacerbated.
Back to the idea that I’m weirded out by your introductory stats lecture: as far as I can tell, your argument isn’t a statistical one anyway; it is purely political. It is your politics, not your stats, that make me feel you don’t care all that much about women. But hey, prove me wrong.
the problem:- the risk of dieing in childbirth rises with each pregnancy.
the solution:- contraceptives, or keep your legs shut.
ps im an English labour voter, and i belong to a trades union. incase you were wondering, so im not your typical rightwing nutter.
Ok let’s see some polls. How many children to women want in these countries compared to how many they actually have, and how much they feel they can control that outcome. Are you sure the desire to control their birthrate is distributed heavily among the women who lack that control? It might be, I’m just saying that would be a good statistic right now, see who is really speaking for whom here. Don’t insult me for asking.
Make up your mind — either stats mean something or they don’t. Why is it I get the feeling that regardless of how many stats I provided, you’d find a way to ignore, dismiss, and negate them, too.
Whatever.
AMANITARE — African Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women and Girls.
Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives: The Impact Of Family Planning: A Synthesis of Findings from the Women’s Studies Project.
Family Planet: International Family Planning
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): 2000 Annual Report
The Value of Family Planning Programs in Developing Countries
These are but a few of the sources out there and available on this topic. I chose these because they actually contain the voices of the women we are talking about.
I think it’s incredibly important to recognize that pregnancy and birth, for any woman, is a risk. A number of factors can increase that risk. Poverty, poor health care, unsafe water, lack of access to family planning can, and do, all increase these risks.
This isn’t about stopping women from having children — this about allowing women to have the families they want (and the right to determine how large or how small said family will be), and enabling them to do so in the safest manner possible.
the problem:- the risk of dieing in childbirth rises with each pregnancy.
the solution:- contraceptives, or keep your legs shut.
And you would enact this solution how?
What about the women with no access to contraceptives?
What about the women raped? What about the forced pregnancies?
It was the attack on America that brought me here, you can respect that I hope?
No, quite frankly, I don’t respect that. First, people have the right to talk about the US any way they want — it’s the first amendment. Second, there hasn’t been an “attack on America.” I mean, seriously, now, the following quote was from Amp in one of his original posts on the subject:
The U.S., unsurprisingly, is one of the best places in the world – we ranked 11 out of 117. But, considering our vast wealth, it’s disappointing that we didn’t rank first (or even rank in the top ten).
Since when is saying that the US is one of the best places in the world (and “unsurprisingly” at that) “attacking the US”? Since when is pointing out that because we are the richest nation in the world, perhaps we should be ranked higher an “attack on the US”?
Well I can definitely get behind access to condoms and the pill as birth control, and they are definitely available in America. No one is being denied them legally here, it’s a market.
You realize that simply “being legal” isn’t the full extent of “access” don’t you? Access also means education about birth control (which we have a very sorry level of in this country). Access also means being able to get them — not just legally, but financially.
I don’t think any conservatives came to this site, via this article, because they disagree with any of that. You realize this, right?
Yes, apparently you came here for made up reasons (i.e. there was an “attack on America”).
A very important aspect of access to birth control WRT maternal mortality is not only that it provides women with the ability to control the number of their children, but that it provides the ability to control the spacing and timing of their pregnancies. If a woman can choose to have a child when she is facing healthier conditions (not in times of famine or drought or extreme economic hardship) and in a timeframe that is best for her family (after the last child is weaned for example) then she decreases her risk of facing problems during childbirth. Abortion can sometimes be necessary to protect the life of the mother (and, obviously, in these cases access to a safe abortion directly effects maternal mortality). Even if women choose to have the same number of children in their lifetime, access to reproductive control measures can help to lower the instance of death during childbirth.
And Marc, sometimes it is helpful to examine the total number of uninsured people rather than the percentage. Even if the number of people without insurance is growing at the same rate as the population, thus leaving the percentage unchanged, there is no guarantee that the funding for the (meager) safety net that helps to protect some of the uninsured (like free clinics and county hospitals and private charities) is increasing at the same level, which means that an increase in the total number of people without insurance could lead to the overloading of an already stretched-to-the-limit system. A percentage figure would not necessarily represent that, and is therefore not always the perfect data to use.
(imagine, a lil’ woman like me understanding something about statistics. Oh my stars, what will happen next?)
I heard about this thread from Lee’s blog, and thought I’d pop over to see how the other half lives. I must say, nothing I’ve read here has disabused me of the opinion that the Left lives on crass emotionalism, misdirection and lies. And I think it was Mark Twain who said that “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics”. You can twist numbers like this around to say whatever you want them to, unless your interlocutor has a degree in statistical analysis.
In any case, the notion that women in the US don’t have access to birth control and medical care is nonsense. There are clinics and hospitals, Planned Parenthood, various items you can buy cheaply at drugstores and the like, etc, etc. Hell’s bells, you want free medical care? Go to any hospital emergency room. They HAVE to take you, whether or not you have any money, period; that’s the law, let alone what any tort lawyer would do to them if they refused (talk to anyone who works in any hospital around here and you will be regaled with stories of all the non-paying customers they get through the ER, most especially women in labor; it’s so prevalent that it’s become a joke in the medical community, and yet people are still whining about “the high cost of medical care”). And we have not even talked about things like Medicaid and similar programs.
As has already been alluded to, if you want the help, it’s there, but you have to get off your lazy butt and go get it. Like it or not, there are regional, and more importantly, cultural variations in this country which affect how much and/or whether our hypothetical female, pregnant or not, is likely to partake of them. Of course, our leftist friends don’t want to look at this aspect, because it might threaten their dearly held faith that all cultures are created equal (they are most assuredly not).
Some years ago I read about this black anthropologist who was going to do a paper on teenage pregnancy in the black community and it’s causes. Naturally, he drew his conclusions before he ever collected any data, to wit, that the reason so many black teens were getting knocked up was because of a lack of reproductive education and access to birth control. But even so, he did do his field work, and actually had the intellectual honesty (what a surprise) to adjust his opinions based on the data. And what he had found out was that nearly all the girls he interviewed DID know about reproduction and how to keep from getting pregnant, and even had access to the techniques of same. Not only that, he discovered that most of these girls got pregnant ON PURPOSE. So that they would have “someone who loved me”, as they generally put it (which says a hell of a lot about the culture they grew up in, rather than any supposed lack of education or “access to (fill in the blank)”.
The devil is in the details, people. Nowhere in any of the stats cited earlier for the US does it give any details of just what the causes of death, other than “childbirth” (which covers a multitude of sins), were. Like WHERE they were, for one thing. To read some of the drivel posted here, you’d think that most if not all of the women who died did so in some rat-infested alley somewhere, dead because of the e-vil white male Republican conspiracy to kill off as many pregnant females (of “color”, natch) as possible. The numbers don’t say, of course, but I’ll bet my next paycheck that if the truth were known, most of the women who died, not only died in a hospital, but had had prenatal care to boot (and that those who did not have prenatal care, could have received it had they chose to). Fact is, there is a lot that can go wrong in a pregnancy, even at the last minute, and things which the doctor may not have been able to detect until it was too late. Ask any OB/GYN doc or L&D nurse (I dated a L&D nurse last year, and she told me stories that would curl your hair; let it suffice to say that pregnancy is not something to be taken lightly, but unfortunately a lot of women do, until something bites them on the ass from it).
Once again, the devil is in the details, which you conveniently ignore. Also, never assume malice when stupidity will suffice. And there are a lot of stupid people in this world, and not all the taxpayer-funded “access to medical care” (which already exists anyway, despite any mewling to the contrary) can protect people like this from their own folly.
***”the problem:- the risk of dieing in childbirth rises with each pregnancy.
the solution:- contraceptives, or keep your legs shut.
ps im an English labour voter, and i belong to a trades union. incase you were wondering, so im not your typical rightwing nutter.”***
How nice and helpful. Well, once you’re done patting yourself on the back for your genius, feel free to apologize to every Union woman on the planet for your crap, which proves nothing save that you didn’t read the entire thread or couldn’t comprehend it. The mere existence of contraception will not save a woman if it fails, if she is raped, or her partner/husband/father/etc won’t use it, and won’t allow her to.
By the way, I’m a Union woman myself. So you know where to start your apologies. Is the temperature comfortable in that cave you live in, O Wise One ?
***”And there are a lot of stupid people in this world, and not all the taxpayer-funded “access to medical care” (which already exists anyway, despite any mewling to the contrary) can protect people like this from their own folly.”***
Oh, goody. Mike Savage is here. Now the party can REALLY begin !!!!
Bean, Ampersand, and Tishie all made a lot of good points, and I feel like we are all starting to agree on things – we all want women to have access to healthcare and safe contraception and to bring the deathrate down.
We only differ on the following things:
– The maternal and infant mortality rate
differences between different American racial
groups implies clearly understood problems
with clearly understood solutions.
– The play of statistics in the Save the
Children study to place America out of the
top 10 for Woman’s Index was fair or
accurate. If %Women in national govenment
were not used and mortality per birth were
used, then America would have been in the
top 10. It does not represent a stinging
attack on the state of health care or
of women in America.
Other than that, we apparently agree on everything, right?
Marc, you haven’t made any arguments regarding why it’s inappropriate to use a measure of women’s perentage in national goverment (among other measures) in a “Women’s Index.” In fact, this is the first time you (or anyone) has mentioned the issue on this thread, which makes it odd that you cite it as something we’ve been disagreeing on.
I do agree that we disagree on the StR report; placing the US 11th out of 117 is not a “stinging attack,” it’s not an attack at all. By any reasonable standard, 11 of 117 is doing well.
As for American blacks, it’s a subject that deserves a lot of discussion – but do you understand that it’s not what I’ve been discussing on this thread, at all? Nor do I think that’s what most of the lefty writers on this thread have been discussing. We’ve mostly been discussing one of the things the Save the Children report discusses – the huge gulf between developing and industrial states in terms of maternal mortality, and how that might be addressed.
I can’t help but wonder if you bringing up two topics that we haven’t been addressing in this thread reflects the fact that you’ve been losing the debate in the areas we’ve actually been talking about.
* * *
Captain, I’m a little surpised at how insulting you feel the need to be. If you want to repeat your arguments without all the cheap shots, though, I’ll be glad to address them.
I do have a question, though: Which blog is “Lee’s blog”?
Guamgrl3 wrote: A very important aspect of access to birth control WRT maternal mortality is not only that it provides women with the ability to control the number of their children, but that it provides the ability to control the spacing and timing of their pregnancies. […]
Thank you for saying this (and also for what you posted about statistics about the uninsured)… you’re quite right. I shouldn’t have been talking about just the number of births; as you say, controlling timing is also essential.
Both measures of maternal mortality matter, but measure different things. If a woman looks at the data and wonders, “How dangerous will it be for me to have a child?”, the per-child measure works. If she is thinking about the possible risk to her daughter, who might be influenced by the mores, restrictions, and gender relations prevalent in her country, or about Woman in the abstract, than Save the Children’s calculation per woman might be best. But both are valuable.
The fact remains that nations in which women are not given the freedom to have children, such as China with its one-child-per-family policy, affect the value of these measurements as an indicator of maternal well-being. If Chinese women had their druthers, by and large the country’s population would be growing at a faster rate than it does now. On the other hand, China would be free, and maternal mortality, of course, would fall.
Your proposed Nation of Access encourages birth control, while the Nation of Noaccess bans it. *Access does not equal encouragement.* However, most people, except when near-absolute necessity arises, do as their government tells them is best. In a way, America’s government has encouraged abortion and, yes, birth control by making it available. That’s quite different from actually providing incentives to women to not have children, which is what encouragement really means. The idea that women have a higher birthrate in the United States than in Europe because of Abortion Politics – i.e. that a blast fax from the RNC provoked any church (or better yet, the Christian Coalition, or Justice Thomas himself) to successfully encourage women to not have abortions, more or less – is ludicrous. Rather, the Abortion Politics come from the mores of persons who oppose abortion – and who, even as is oft reflected in their most private family planning decisions, believe children are a blessing.