WHY WOULD SO MANY INFANTS BE DYING AT THE HOSPITAL?

"...and that's where I would urge you to put your attention, your focus, and the budget purse strings...towards that, and NOT what's before you today." - C. Leon Guerrero

Former Senator Carlotta Leon Guerrero had a curious take on Bill 195-32. She used the occasion of the public hearing to draw attention to Guam’s infant mortality rate by opposing a bill which would outlaw the killing of infants who survive abortions. 

Watch it here, then read the comments below.

Ms. Leon Guerrero attributes Guam’s infant mortality rate, which she says is “twice that of the United States”, on “shaken baby syndrome”, on “kids in poor houses with violence”, on “elderly grandmothers with Alzheimers”, and on “young mothers leaving their kids and going out.”

Obviously, from her pile of statistics, which she waves around in front of the senators, she didn’t bother to get the actual statistics for the reason so many infants die on Guam. 

So here, we'll provide it.

At the public hearing for Bill No. 62-32, now P.L. 32-030, Dr. Aurelio Espinola testified that of the 44 deaths of children in 2011 under one year of age, he had examined 34 of the bodies and determined that the primary cause of death was “due to prematurity”. 

This means that they probably died before they ever left the hospital (and not at the hands of "grandmothers with Alzheimers"), since doctors normally do not send premature infants in danger of dying home with the parents. Now why would that be? Why would so many infants be dying at the hospital?

Stay tuned.