News from the last week (or so)
Good news:
- Baltimore’s Healthy Start program has nearly eradicated very-low-birth-weight births. (The article says “near eradication of low-birth-weight babies”, but I think that implies something different and far more sinister than what actually occurred.)
- New York State has refused Federal funds for abstinence-only sex education. Among other requirements, recipients of the funds must agree not to promote the use of contraception, and to teach that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of [heterosexual, I need hardly add] marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”.
- The breast cancer mortality rate is dropping among American women, by about 2% per year.
Bad news:
- The breast cancer mortality rate isn’t dropping for black women.
- The maternal death rate is rising among American women. It is especially high among black women, and may be even higher than official figures indicate.
Where I get the news:
- The above items all came to my attention via the Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy report. It’s a roundup of news from mainstream media sources, so the usual disclaimers apply, but it’s a good place to get an overview.
Commentary on the news:
- Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union comments on the Jena Six
- liberaljournal at Booman Tribune reminds us, Don’t Forget the Other Jena’s.
- District Attorney Reed Walters said of a protest by several thousand supporters of the Jena Six on September 20: “I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that.” Thanks, I think I will. Apparently a large gathering of mostly African-American protestors is a sufficient threat as to require divine intervention. I bet poor Jesus never even had time for a smoke break during the 50s and 60s.
News that makes me worry that I was unintentionally prescient:
- The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case alleging that lethal injection is a cruel and unusual method of punishment (ht: mindful mission.)