New York City Has Healthier Babies, Because They Want Them
In 2009, according to the numbers just released by the City at the end of 2010, New York City had 126,774 live births! And 90,000 pregnancies — that were reported, at least! — ended in chosen termination. So of course the Archbishop is weeping and freaking out.
According to the Department of Health: “For women under the age of 25, more pregnancies end in induced termination than in a live birth or spontaneous termination.”
Other fun facts: almost 15% of abortions in NYC were for married women. I don’t know if that sounds low or high to me!
Anyway, nobody tell the Church, but this doesn’t even taken into account the thousands upon thousands of morning-after pills dispensed in the City. (There’s a reason it doesn’t take them into account, by the way!) It also doesn’t count the most likely hundreds of thousands of would-be pregnancies that last only a few minutes or hours, that are then ended by God, due to his mysterious ways and designs — would-be pregnancies that no one ever knows about, and boy howdy, don’t you just think that if the Catholics ever stopped to think about this, they’d never get anything done ever again and wouldn’t have any time to object to art shows?
All this reproductive health and choice means — or, to be fair to our statistics-minded friends, is associated with, if not related to! — that Manhattan has one of the best infant health rates in the country.
In case you are preparing to be an infant yourself, rest easy. You’re doing pretty great (especially if you’re a white infant), what with the infant mortality rate in NYC now being just 5.3 per 1000 births. (One hundred years ago, it was about 120 per 1000 births in New York City.)
In the U.S. overall, the rate is now about 6.6 per 1000. But if you live in Manhattan, it’s just 4.1 per 1000 births.
In other news, only 389 people died from firearms in 2009. And only 57 of them were 19 or younger!
In slightly less good news: are you black in New York City and 35 and a half years old? Congratulations! You’re at the exact statistical midpoint of your life.