Reply #123: Sigh

[Marie26]

"Yes, it's true that murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women. But that's also a phrase which is designed to shock and produce an inaccurate impression in the reader, which is that pregnant women are at a significant risk of murder, or more so than non-pregnant women, which isn't neccessarily true."

Oh, so the fact that pregnant women are more likely to die of murder than any other cause is a "factoid?" Yes, pregnant women are at a higher risk of murder than non-pregnant women. They are more likely to die of homicide than any medical cause, or any pregnancy complication. Among women in general, the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer, & stroke. Murder isn't even in the top 10 causes. But among pregnant women, murder is the number one cause of death. Pregnant women face a much higher homicide risk than women in general. Instead of being safer while pregnant, women are actually more in danger of a violent death. This society is messed up.

Many New or Expectant Mothers Die Violent Deaths

A year-long examination by The Washington Post of death-record data in states across the country documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990. This is only part of the national toll, because no reliable system is in place to track such cases.

Largely invisible, it is a phenomenon that is as consequential as it is poorly understood. Even in the past two years -- as the Laci Peterson homicide case has become a public fascination, with a jury last week recommending that her husband, Scott, be sentenced to death in her killing -- little has been said about the larger convergence of pregnancy and homicide: how often it happens, why, and whether it is a fluke or a social syndrome.

Until recently, many of the cases have gone virtually unstudied, uncounted, untracked. Police agencies across the country do not regularly ask about maternal status when they investigate homicides. And health experts have focused historically on the medical complications of pregnancy -- embolism, hemorrhage, infection -- not on fatal violence.

The Post's analysis shows that the killings span racial and ethnic groups. In cases whose details were known, 67 percent of women were killed with firearms. Many women were slain at home -- in bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens -- usually by men they knew. Husbands. Boyfriends. Lovers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10074-2004Dec18.html

CDC leading causes of death - http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod.htm