We’re awfully happy for a state where kids die at a faster rate than anywhere else in America:
…Whereas nationally 26 children per 100,000 will die annually, 47 South Dakota children will die per 100,000. This is up from in 2010, which revealed a mortality rate of 39 per 100,000 in the state.
Alaska, with a rating of 44 per 100,000, is the next closest. North Dakota, a common comparison for South Dakota in terms of a rural, upper Midwestern state with pockets of extreme poverty, had a rating of 23 child and teen deaths per 100,000.
…A spokeswoman with the Department of Health suggested among the leading causes for the elevated rate were automobile accidents and suicide [Christopher Vondracek, “South Dakota Children Have Highest Mortality Rate in US,” Rapid City Journal, updated 2018.08.06].
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest Kids Count Data Book, our kids aren’t that bad off economically or educationally, at least not compared to the rest of the country:
South Dakota kids are less likely to be in homes with job or housing insecurity. South Dakota kids do a little better at tests and graduating on time.
South Dakota kids are less likely to be born scrawny and less likely to be growing up in single-parent families (not that I have a moral objection to single parenting, but I can attest from thankfully brief, travel/job-related spates of absence that taking proper care of a child is easier with two good adults in the house than with one)
But our children are more likely to get pregnant than kids elsewhere, and they’re more likely to die.
This is including the reservations, where we’re told that teen suicide is reaching epidemic proportions, right? Sadly, it’s not going to change until we can be convinced to include our Native people in every kind of job and educational opportunity that other kids have. Not arguing accuracy, just that there are variables to be considered.
This is very sad. I’m sure this and the very high maternal death rate must be at the top of the SDGOP’s campaign agenda. What is their plan to deal with these extremely critical, truly life and death issues?
On Rep. Noem’s website there was a lot of blather about fetuses, a good comment about enforcing child support and that was about it. There’s zilch on Ravnsborg’s site and I don’t remember who’s running against Bjorkman.
I’m guessing there are some active Democratic elected officials and candidates who are zeroed in on this SD tragedy, but the only one I’m certain of is Toni Miller. She’s focused on healthcare = Bingo! I think her state race is district 9. Given a chance, Toni Miller wants to address this.
Only by breaking it down to ages/causes of death can anybody figure out what the problem is.
How many of the deaths are occurring during the first year of life? That would reflect the adequacy of prenatal care and parental education, about things like smoking during pregnancy and putting babies to sleep on their backs. Ages 1-10? Those are usually preventable accidents, reflecting adequacy of supervision and other environmental factors, childproofing the home, knowing where the kids are and what they are doing. Into the teens, there are things like substance abuse, vehicle crashes, suicides, things like that.
Without knowing the breakdown it’s impossible to look for solutions.
What is their plan to deal with these extremely critical, truly life and death issues?
Defund and shutter Planned Parenthood and outlaw abortion and cut taxes for the koch bros.
And stack the judiciary with religious maroons.
Anne … Your analysis, “Without knowing the breakdown it’s impossible to look for solutions.” is simplistic, lazy and without a doubt, shows you to be Dakota Contrary.
Right, Porter. Anne preaches inaction on false claim of ignorance. Ignorance doesn’t stop Trump from advocating abstinence to stop teen pregnancy, when all the evidence says comprehensive sex ed works far better.
Tim Bjorkman’s position paper does a great job of breaking down some of the problems children face, not just in higher mortality but in the toxic stress that makes their lives harder, and he offers several sensible general policy ideas. Don’t fall for Anne’s convenient ignorance and inaction. Kids are dying. Elect Democrats who will actually do something about the problem instead of standing around with Leslee Unruh stopping cars and handing out lotion and chocolates.
Cory, is it leslee unruh’s goal or her method you don’t like?
It seems like through this article, you are supporting saving the lives of children who are otherwise doomed by statistics to die. People who want to end abortion feel like they are also saving the lives of children. So do you think she should stop trying to save unborn babies, or that giving out lotion in drive thru-lines is a stupid way to achieve that goal?
For the record, my opinion is that the methods are stupid, but the goal is probably OK.
Okay, wingnuts- you force women to carry a fetus to term. Now what are your plans for each and every child you force to be born?
mfi, According to Comrade Jason, feed them soybeans and prepare them to work the fields.
Ryan, yes, Leslee’s methods are offensive. Women are seeking a medical procedure in a difficult time, and Leslee thinks making them feel beautiful fixes everything. Horsehockey. She should dump her cheap gift bags, her blockage of traffic, and her interference in other people’s lives.
Leslee Unruh is wrong: she is not saving the lives of children. She is trying to prevent women from exercising their bodily autonomy. She should stop trying to get in women’s way.
I am o.k. with a goal of creating conditions that would allow every woman to avoid ever having to consider having an abortion: comprehensive sex ed, access to affordable birth control, respectful men who never touch a woman without her consent, living wages and workers rights that guarantee every woman can afford to be a mom.
But I know that even those conditions fully realized would not guarantee that every woman who conceives a child would be able to say, “Yup, I’m carrying this to term.” There will always be mishaps, illness, defects, unforeseen changes in circumstance, you name it, that make a pregnancy untenable, and those situations, like the situations right now that lead women to terminate their pregnancies, are none of Leslee’s or your or my or anyone else’s business.
That said, once those children are born, once they are outside absolute bodily dependence on a single autonomous woman, we should still enact every reasonable public policy we can to lower South Dakota’s child mortality rate. But that’s funny: I don’t see Leslee handing out lotion and chocolate at Thunder Valley, where kids risk their lives in go-karts. I don’t see Leslee blocking traffic by the liquor stores trying to make sure kids aren’t buying alcohol. I don’t see Leslee going to Pierre to lobby for expansion of Medicaid. No: it’s a lot more fun to stand around in public and block traffic with her little morality crusade.
Cory you said:
“she is not saving the lives of children. She is trying to prevent women from exercising their bodily autonomy.”
First, it is your opinion that leslee is not saving lives, not a fact. It is apparently leslee’s opinion that she is saving lives. You have decided to believe that a fetus does not have life, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary. Leslee apparently believes a fetus is a life worth saving, even if it requires making people uncomfortable.
And then you said
“I don’t see Leslee handing out lotion and chocolate at Thunder Valley, where kids risk their lives in go-karts. I don’t see Leslee blocking traffic by the liquor stores trying to make sure kids aren’t buying alcohol. I don’t see Leslee going to Pierre to lobby for expansion of Medicaid. No: it’s a lot more fun to stand around in public and block traffic with her little morality crusade.”
I don’t think you can really fault leslee for not attempting to solve all of the world’s problems, can you? Do you mean that because she is trying to solve one problem, she has to solve all problems or she is not meeting your expectations? You are trying to make the world a better place by blogging and being involved in politics, but I don’t see you blocking traffic to make sure kids aren’t buying alcohol, either. You aren’t lobbying for medicaid expansion, are you? It’s more fun to write blogs, right?
I did not say that a fetus does not have life. A fetus does not have rights that supersede the rights of the woman on whom it depends for sustenance. The state does not have the authority to deny women their rights in favor of an entity with subordinate rights.
And Leslee Unruh does not have the right to block traffic.
I can fault Leslee for not solving any problems. She certainly isn’t going to solve whatever problems may lead women to seek abortions by handing them cheap bags to make them feel pretty (how utterly vacuous and demeaning: I have never had a real problem that could be solved by a stranger walking up with a self-righteous smile and handing me lotion or shimmery pocket square). She wouldn’t even solve the “problem” she thinks she sees by banning abortion; as we’ve seen throughout history, women keep having abortions, regardless of what the state says. If she is concerned, as you say, about children dying, she would do more good by tackling any of the issues I mention. If she is concerned about reducing abortion, she could do so more effectively by advocating for comprehensive sex education and handing out condoms in the coffee shop driveway… although I would find the latter annoying and unacceptably disruptive as well.
People are allowed to think differently than you. If she thinks she is doing something to save lives, that seems like a decent goal, even if you think she is not being as effective as she would be if she did it your way. I think abortion should be legal because people who are forced to have children they don’t want typically won’t raise healthy and happy humans, but I think people trying to reduce the number of dead babies is a good thing.
You have never had a problem that could be solved by leslee’s methods, huh? Do you suppose everyone has the same problems as you and the same response to those problems? Talk about self-righteous.