Memphis Infant Mortality Rate Higher than Vietnam's

by Leigh Graham

Published March 09, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT

What did you do yesterday for International Women's Day?  At a minimum, did you tell your mom, daughter, wife, girlfriend, sister, grandmother, aunt that you loved her?  Women - did you put your feet up or take one another to lunch or devote the day to the project you've been working on all this time?  More boldly, did you donate your time or money or skills to fighting poverty, hunger, family homelessness, reproductive justice, domestic violence, foreclosures, or any of a number of social issues that impact women?  Here's a look at what's been happening around the web and the nation, causes for both alarm and celebration:

Amnesty International reminds us that women living in poverty are denied their full human rights:

Women living in poverty are deprived of their rights to health and education and live in fear of violence in their lives and of their children, demonstrating that freedom from fear and freedom from want or inextricably linked. Women living in poverty are excluded from the opportunity to actively participate in decisions that affect their lives. Women experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination based on their race, ethnicity, caste, religion, gender or sexuality but also simply on account of their living in poverty.

Lest you think Amnesty = overseas, check out Memphis, TN.  It has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation; in some neighborhoods it exceeds rates in Vietnam, El Salvador or Iran.  Yet the TN legislature, rather than try to tackle the confluence of racism, poverty, poor education, lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare, instead is proposing to monitor pregnant women's behavior to ensure fetal health.  Good plan!  /snark.

Instead, Laurie Rubiner at RH Reality Check has an excellent primer on how expanding access to contraception and family planning is one of the smartest and healthiest economic moves we could make.  Too bad the GOP men in charge can't have the discuss without snickering.

Finally, speaking of stereotypes and bias, RaceWire issues a call to "rethink welfare policy" during this time of economic apocalypse:

TANF needs serious reconsideration including a rescinding of punitive work requirements and an end to the time limits that cut people off after 5 years total enrollment. We need to ensure that families have access to supplementary benefits like food stamps, fully subsidized child care, transportation and housing assistance and we need to remove debilitating eligibility requirements that exclude many documented immigrants and people with past involvement with the criminal justice system. To do these things Americans have to be willing to move past their racial stereotypes about people of color and welfare" - specifically women of color, I'd add.

Some women are already fighting back.

(Photo from The Commercial Appeal, March 6, 2005)