SAY WHAT? Ilia Calderón Cites Lack of Abortions As Cause For Increase In Infant Mortality

November 2nd, 2023 1:50 PM

Univision anchor Ilia Calderón proves, once again, that the network advocates for entire leftwing policy pupu platter beyond immigration. And that abortion (with gun control a close second) is at the apex of those non-immigration issues.

Watch as Calderón, who recently co-moderated a GOP presidential primary debate, authoritatively cites “the lack of reproductive rights” as a reason behind the increase in infant mortality rate:

ILIA CALDERÓN: A new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Vital Statistics revealed that, from 2021 to 2022, the infant mortality rate increased by 3%, the first increase- or, the largest increase in two decades.

According to experts, causes could be the lack of maternity care, limiting parents’ abilities to care for the child; and also the lack of reproductive rights, which forces millions of women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

What Univision’s viewers heard from Calderón is that the inability to butcher children in utero causes them to die ex utero. But that is nowhere within the actual study, which revealed that the top ten causes for the increased infant mortality rate within the United States are:

  • Congenital malformations
  • Short gestation and low birthweight, not elsewhere classified
  • Sudden infant death syndrome
  • Accidents (unintentional injures)
  • Maternal complications of pregnancy
  • Complications of placenta, cord and membranes
  • Bacterial sepsis of newborn
  • Respiratory distress of newborn
  • Diseases of the circulatory system
  • Neonatal hemorrhage

Lack of access to abortion is nowhere in sight with the actual study. So where did Calderón get the abortion talking point from? It appears that Calderón got it from an ABC News report citing an “expert on women’s access to reproductive care” who was nowhere near the study. Per the report:

Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine who is an expert on women's access to reproductive health care, told ABC News she's not surprised by the findings and that she sees a couple of reasons for the increase in infant mortality rates.

One is maternity care deserts -- where’s there a lack or absence of maternity care -- which limits the ability to care for infants properly. The second is limiting of access to abortion, particularly following the Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

"Any pregnancy that is intended and planned tends to be a healthier outcome and healthy infant outcome," Wilkinson, who was not involved in the report, said. "So, when you remove the ability for people to decide if and when to have families and continue pregnancies, ultimately, you are having more pregnancies continue that don't have all those factors in place."

She added, "Furthermore, we are hearing over and over again, women with non-viable fetuses with diagnoses that mean that they will not survive outside of the womb for any significant period of time, being forced to continue those pregnancies. And so that will also contribute to infant mortality because once those infants are born, they're counted in these numbers.

When you look at the actual study, the data show that the spike in infant mortality is due to maternal complications of pregnancy, bacterial sepsis of the newborn, and respiratory distress of the newborn (Covid and RSV, anyone?). Calderón literally parroted the abortion advocacy and glued to an actual news story. 

Stories like these- leftwing advocacy disguised as news- are the reason why consumers of Spanish-language news are the most disinformed among the voting audience. The market continues to cry out for alternatives.