According to a report released last week in the widely-respected health research journal, The Lancet, the United States now ranks 60th out of 180 countries on maternal deaths occurring during pregnancy and childbirth. To put it bluntly, for every 100,000 births in America last year, 18.5 women died. That’s compared to 8.2 women who died during pregnancy and … Continue reading »
contraception
Oral contraceptives should be in vending machines and cigarettes on prescription
I am continuing my weekly blog built around the large undergraduate class I co-teach on Poverty and Population. The philosophy of the class has been well summarized by the economist Partha Dasgupta in a recent Science article. He pointed out that, “Family planning is not subject to the play of free markets; it is biased … Continue reading »
Dead babies, brothels, contraception and presentist history
“Are dead babies good evidence for a Roman brothel?” That’s the question raised by a BBC story about analyses of materials from an almost century-old excavation at a Roman villa in the Thames Valley. The data: remains of 97 infants, all of whom died close to birth. To the researchers, the coincidence suggests deliberate killing … Continue reading »