Mark West

Imagine 225,534 dead babies. Imagine the disaster implied by that horrible image. A city the size of Jersey City, N.J., or Akron, Ohio, full of nothing but tiny dead corpses.

Thatís what the U.S. infant-mortality rate of 6.37 deaths per 1,000 live births means over seven years.

Other nations do better. The United States ranks 180th out of the nations surveyed by the World Health Organization. For what itís worth, weíre in a virtual dead heat with Croatia and Lithuania.

The Czech Republic, that well-known haven of public well-being, does much better than we. So does France. Ditto Malta and Slovenia. Singapore, that paradise, has only 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births.

And itís worse than that in North Carolina. Our infant-mortality rate is 8.9, right between Latvia and Samoa. Between 1995 and 2002, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 7,948 babies died in North Carolina.

The United States lost, at most recent estimate, 2,998 people on September 11, 2001. That tragedy led to the mobilization of the resources of a great army, to the expenditure of vast sums of money, and to sweeping changes in the laws and attitudes of a whole nation.

The Republican administration wrapped itself in the flag after 9/11, declaring itself to be at war against terrorism.

But the response of conservative commentators to the tragic, and appalling, statistics on infant mortality has been sorry, if predictable.

One response from the scientific arm of the administration has been that, since the preponderance of these infant deaths occur among African-Americans, it must be ó the fault of faulty genes!†

This argument has been debunked conclusively by a study conducted at the University of Illinois, which compared birth weights of African-Americans, whites and Africans. The researchers found that being in the United States, and being poor, was a far better predictor of low birth weight than was race.

Another conservative response was good, old-fashioned doubletalk. John Lott, author of the book ìFreedomnomics,î engaged in the following bit of argle-bargle in his blog: ìMaking something safer can actually encourage more dangerous behavior. Suppose that you make riding a motorcycle completely safe. What would happen to how fast that you drive?î

In other words, high infant-mortality rates are actually good, since they discourage people from having babies who will receive little care, and who will subsequently die. The mind reels at the sophistry involved. And David Hogberg, of the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research, argues that itís because so many of the pregnant women in the United States are living alone. Yes, unwed mothers cause high mortality rates! Itís the momís fault, via moral failure!

There is indeed moral failure at the heart of Americaís shameful infant-mortality rates. The fault is ours, for failing to provide the sort of prenatal care most industrialized nations seem to manage with ease. The conservative penchant for blaming the victim aside, the failure is ours, for failing to imagine 225,534 dead babies.

And for failing to dream of living in a nation where such a thing would be unacceptable.