Stork reality: why Americas infants are dying.

The reasons for the high rate of infant mortality recorded in the United States are examined. The author suggests that improvements in medical care including the simplification of federal program bureaucracy better services in rural areas and increases in eligibility for medical insurance can help futher reduce infant mortality but that the main "barrier to prenatal care has to do with the behavior and motivation of mothers themselves....A free society cannot force a woman to obtain prenatal care nor can it constantly look over her shoulder to ensure that she doesnt smoke take drugs or otherwise damage herself and her child. Neither can the government by itself prevent out-of-wedlock births stop young girls from having babies or construct the supportive family setting necessary not only to the infants survival of birth but also his survival of childhood and adolesence." (EXCERPT)