Survival issues

[farla]

So over on MSN is this article about how the number of preemie babies is continuing to rise and no one's really sure why. Some is because of the multiple births from fertility treatments, but not all, and it's that 'not all' that has everyone worried. It goes on to talk about how doctors have improved their ability to care for preemies over the past several decades so that far more of them survive.

No one sees the really fucking obvious connection, and this annoys me.

Anyway, in the related article is some stuff about how state testing for infant disorders isn't standardized, so depending on where a baby is born, it might not be diagnosed and die. The article was supposed to convince me that this is horrible.

Instead I thought, My god, those kids are surviving? They're going to breed?

I'm not advocating we start killing toddlers. It's just that when I read the story about the poor little baby that's genetically incapable of storing energy in fat, I don't think about how frightening it is he almost died. I think about how frightening it is he's going to grow up and pass on those genes.

Then there's the issue that with the amount of energy blown in keeping alive these kids - who again, will only breed and make more of their maladapted selves - you could save a dozen foreign kids in some starving country, easy. And those kids wouldn't be polluting the gene pool. They'll probably be more productive too. A lot of prolife people have the whole 1 baby > anything not human, which I can at least understand, but I've never understood the 1 American baby > 20 African babies. It's the same reason I wasn't made properly patriotic by the whole 9/11 thing, I guess.

Comments

[actonthat.livejournal.com]

No one sees the really fucking obvious connection, and this annoys me.


You sure they weren't talking about how many preemies are being born in total, and not just how many are surviving in total? That might explain the oxymoronic-ness in there. Though... sort of, I guess.

[farla.livejournal.com]

They were, but pause to do math.

Thirty years ago the medical community improved preemie care.

Thirty years later, the former preemies are having kids.

[actonthat.livejournal.com]

Ah. *nods* "I see," said the blind man.

[wintersheir]

Somewhere, Darwin is probably laughing at us.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I like to view Darwin as a more benevolent pseudo-god, although not quite to the point of the weepy baby Jesus, so perhaps he's shaking his head sadly.