I just finished watching a 20/20 special entitled "Babyland," a one-hour show about infant mortality in Tennessee.
The special focused primarily on teenage mothers in Memphis, located in a county where one baby dies every 43 hours. The vast majority are African Americans.
They documented the journey of a young woman named Precious Simpson, who lives in a Memphis neighborhood burdened by poverty and crime.
A wealthy white woman named Terry, from a suburban Memphis neighborhood, mentored Precious throughout her pregnancy, providing guidance, friendship and financial assistance. She heard about the opportunity from a church bulletin.
She seemed very nice (even though she claims to have "helped Precious make the decision not to have an abortion").
She clearly loved Precious and felt it was important to make trips into the city to spend time with her and check up on her. At several points during the special, she mentioned her fellow church-goers back in the 'burbs, and their disapproving attitudes about Precious and others like her. Terry threw Precious a baby shower at a community center rather than her church, because other members said, "She shouldn't even be having a baby."
Doctors, health department workers, nurses, reporters and social workers were all featured on the program, speaking to the issue of decreasing the infant mortality rate in poor black communities. Most expressed dismay that our nation's infant mortality rate does not get the media attention it merits. Even with one of the country's highest homicide rates, Memphis buries more infants each year than murder victims.
Premature birth is a major contributor, and teenage moms are most likely to give birth prematurely; this is usually because they do not receive the necessary prenatal care. Medical centers and the county health department have educational programs for pregnant teenagers, but due to budget cuts, most are struggling to meet the city's needs. Non-profit organizations have taken over, but struggle to raise funds. One family center counselor said she finds it nearly impossible to get people to donate maternity clothes or diapers for these young women. She is certain that people care less about this crisis because the people in need are black; their babies are black.
Precious became pregnant by a young man who last spoke to her when she told him she was pregnant. According to Terry, he decided to show up to the hospital for her baby girl's birth, but treated Precious like dirt.
Before the baby reached two months of age, he was murdered in the street (like so many of the young men in Memphis).
I am just so depressed after watching this program. Mostly, I am outraged by the attitudes, especially the complacency, of so-called Christians (usually white) who oppose abortion but don't blink an eye when babies die soon after birth.
Why was there only ONE woman from that suburban church willing to get involved in a young woman's life (and the life of her baby)? Terry said that "She should have been abstinent!" is a common refrain she hears back in her neighborhood.
She explains (rightly) to the interviewer that it's not so simple when impoverished girls from broken homes are starved and often desperate for affection. They aren't able to obtain birth control as easily as more privileged kids are, and won't even know about it if all they're "learning" is abstinence. Most don't have convenient transportation, healthcare coverage, decent schools, concerned adults in their lives, etc.
These girls are pregnant now, so excusing one's apathy by saying "abstinence!" is appalling and useless.
Babies. are. dying.
Yet people who eagerly volunteer time and money to "save" the unborn are nowhere to be found when it's over 200 babies of color dying each year in one American city. Charities serving low-income children of color are unable to move people of means to care.
I wish Terry would have called her peers out on their hypocricy (and racism?).
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That sounds absolutely tragic, good on Terry for being the only kind of "pro-lifer" who is actually pro-life.
From what I have seen Anti-choicers only care about the white unborn and that does not include prenatal care.
This is such a great post. What has always disgusted me the most about "pro-life" stances hasn't been the underhanded way they're trying to take away women's rights, but how they're so damned hypocritical when it comes to what counts as "life."
Beautiful, well-reasoned post. Thanks.
What's tragic about this is the effect it will have on Precious' life.
Abortion is safer, less painful and it's something we can get over a lot easier than mothering in poverty or losing a child once it's born, after having been pregnant (if one survives the birthing process).
I am beyond merely making sure that choice is illegal and into reminding people what a good choice it can be.
It is easier on the body, mind and spirit.
This reminds me of how El Salvador and Nicaragua have complete abortion bans, ones that involve no exception for medically necessary abortion. Many women have died from untreated ectopic pregnancies, because the doctor's were afraid of being prosecuted for performing abortions. For one woman, they had to wait until the tube ruptured to be sure the fetus would be dead before surgery, and the woman went septic and died. Pro-life hypocrisy at its finest.
Thank you for the wonderful post.