Dear @tedcruz when you say that you and Heidi are praying – do you take turns? How long is this? Is it a passing prayer or a down on the knees prayer? Is it a minute prayer, an hour? Is it a day? Is it a day in total? Do you squeeze all 19 kids into one prayer, or is it a day, a week, a month for each child? How long does a child deserve to be prayed for? If it’s a day that would be 19 days of deep praying. Are we adding in the 10 people from Buffalo? How about the 2 adults killed? Do they get a day each, or are they grouped in with the babies? Do you include each child’s parent? Each adults’ family, their kids? They deserve prayers, don’t you agree? Shouldn’t you and Heidi also pray for the families of the children and adults who survived but may be traumatized for the rest of their lives? Or are they all just grouped into one general brief thought? Just wondering if after all that praying why you don’t actually do anything? Anything you know to stop the never-ending deaths due to guns. Because if your kneeling to pray, you will be kneeling for a long, long time.
Due to a leaked opinion from the Supreme Court, it is believed that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade. The decision is in response to a new very restrictive abortion ban from the State of Mississippi. It is striking that this case comes from Mississippi because in many regards Mississippi is the State least prepared for a lot of new births, and this will inevitably lead to more deaths of mothers and infants.
There have been recent arguments from prolife advocates who now are saying that they need to work on supporting those mothers. First, this battle has been going on for 40 years and they have had plenty of time to work on supporting mothers.
Here is a quote from the NY time’s daily about this issue
“14 years, I’ve been with Ohio Right to Life. And happy is one word, but in pure transparency, I was nervous. Because I said to myself we’ve been talking a lot lately about what a post-Roe Ohio or a post-Roe America would look like.
But now, we actually have to do it. And that’s a blessing— don’t get me wrong— but it also makes me nervous, because we’re in uncharted territory. There’s no book. There’s no manual written by someone in the ‘80s or the ‘90s or some legal scholar writing something on how to do this, that, or the other.
And it’s imperative upon us now to work even harder to make sure that we have social services and a safety net for women who find themselves burdened with a pregnancy. And the dynamics and the messaging and the strategy are completely changed now, and we’re going to have to rewrite the playbook.”
What is appalling is that the data says, instead of saving lives this new law will simply condemn more women and actual babies to death. To clarify “A maternal death is defined by the World Health Organization as, “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes” (1). Maternal mortality rates, which are the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, are shown in this report by age group and race and Hispanic origin.”
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that maternal mortality is increasing.
“
This report updates a previous one that showed maternal mortality rates for 2018 and 2019 (2). In 2020, 861 women were identified as having died of maternal causes in the United States, compared with 754 in 2019 (3). The maternal mortality rate for 2020 was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births compared with a rate of 20.1 in 2019 (Table).
In 2020, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women (19.1) (Figure 1 and Table). Rates for non-Hispanic Black women were significantly higher than rates for non-Hispanic White and Hispanic women. The increases from 2019 to 2020 for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic women were significant. The observed increase from 2019 to 2020 for non-Hispanic White women was not significant.
Rates increased with maternal age. Rates in 2020 were 13.8 deaths per 100,000 live births for women under age 25, 22.8 for those aged 25–39, and 107.9 for those aged 40 and over (Figure 2 and Table). The rate for women aged 40 and over was 7.8 times higher than the rate for women under age 25. Differences in the rates between age groups were statistically significant. Among age groups, the increase in the rates between 2019 and 2020 for women aged 25–39 and 40 and over were statistically significant.”
and what about Mississippi, the State that is fighting so hard to ban abortion? Well, “In Mississippi between 2013 and 2016, there was a total of 136 maternal deaths occurring during pregnancy or within one year of the end pregnancy. The pregnancy-related mortality ratio was 33.2 deaths per 100,000 live births. This was 1.9 times higher than the average US ratio of 17.3 deaths per 100,000 live births” Source .
What that means, is that when the total abortion ban in Mississippi occurs there will be a number of women who never come home. The above numbers do not take into account the natural increase in demand on Mississippi health services from all those women who will now be forced to carry infants to term.
When you look at the State level, Mississippi has the highest rate of infant mortality in the County, most recently at 8.27 percent. Source Mississippi also is the worst in the nation for percent of births to unmarried mothers, its cesarean delivery rate, its preterm birth rate, and for low birth weight. Source
In Mississippi the infant mortality rate “In 2019-2020, there were 615 infant deaths and 72,114 live births to Mississippi residents. The infant mortality rate for this period was 8.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.” Source.
Given Mississippi’s complete failure to date to protect maternal and infant lives, it is very doubtful they are capable of not having a sad cascade of maternal and infant deaths.
If you live in specific parts of SW Rochester you have a much higher risk for cancer than other parts of the City and Monroe County. The 2014 National Toxic Assessment puts your risk of cancer at 25-50% while other parts of SW Rochester, the City, and Monroe County have only a 6-25% risk.
The Propublica Data indicates that in a specific section of the 19th ward you have a 3.4% times risk above the EPA’s acceptable risk level.
As the image above shows, the increased risk is due to two businesses on the edge of SW Rochester, as seen in the John Oliver clip above, there are specific reasons both of those businesses are located there.
So, this is not acceptable. What that means is that we need to change this. We need to contact our representatives at the City, County, State, and Federal level. They have the ability to address this issue. It requires us to have meetings, go to meetings, and address these issues at those meetings.
leavingleavesineaves 