Reduce the infant mortality rate, sexecute

In a column published a few weeks ago, IndyStar columnist Bill Stanczykiewicz discusses the horrifying facts and statistics about infant mortality rates in Indiana.

“According to the updated Kids Count in Indiana Data Book, in 2011 the number of babies who died in the first year of life was 643, similar to the number of students in two elementary schools.” This number leads to Indiana’s infant mortality rate being 25 percent higher than the national average.

Stanczykiewicz goes on to explore possible reasons why the mortality rate might be so high, but it’s actually a letter to the editor from Carolyn Meagher and Sue Ellen Braunlin, co-presidents of Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice, that offers the most immediate, sound and easily-implemented solution: sex education.

With proper prenatal care and general knowledge about the risks of sexual activity, Indiana’s outrageously high infant mortality rate could be solved almost instantly.

If you’ve picked up a copy of the Indiana Daily Student before this one, you know that the Opinion staff loves talking about sex — only sometimes in the raunchy sense, but mostly about sex education.

A few weeks ago, the IDS Editorial Board had to publish a piece about putting on condoms the correct way because a study at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction exposed just how little people knew about the contraceptives. To just get the obvious out there, improper use of condoms is the fastest way to unwanted pregnancy.

On Monday, IDS Opinion columnist Caroline Ellert came to the defense of HIV/AIDS victims and the stigma around them — another conflict linked to the lack of sexual education.

Of course, HIV/AIDS has incredible potential to contribute to the infant mortality rate. According to AIDS.gov, an HIV-positive mother who is not being treated for her HIV during pregnancy, labor or delivery has a 25-percent chance of passing the virus to her baby.

Sexual assault on campus seems like a blasé side note because we see it reported so many times. Throughout the semester, the IDS reported incidents of rape on campus a total of six times. I think we can all agree that’s an incredibly high number when dealing with a subject such as rape.

Though rape isn’t necessarily a part of the general sex education curriculum, it is linked to a general discussion and teachable definition of consensual sex and what that entails.

This is beginning to look like a sort of button on all the work we’ve done this semester.

And there have been plenty of on-campus incidents that we could explore further.

Brother Jeb and the abortion protestors using “photographs” of bloody babies all work to uphold the Indiana ideal that it’s best to just not have sex — a truly dangerous mindset.

The issues are all there and have seemed to remain stagnant for too long.

Improper sex education leads to bringing a baby into a world that might not be fit or supportive of him or her. And this is the fastest route to infant mortality.

Maybe this new rationale will spark some real change.

— sjostrow@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Sam Ostrowski on Twitter @ostrowski_s_j.