This morning, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the March of Dimes' kickoff breakfast in downtown Madison. The speakers included Wisconsin's Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton, Dr. Jennifer Howse, the President of the March of Dimes, and the 2005 Ambassador Family. While the purpose of the event was to drum up enthusiasm among area businesses, a couple of the speakers spoke to the need to make preventing premature births a national priority. They cited statistics about how the rate of prematurity has risen in the United States, year after year. While that's undoubtably true, it's also true that we try (and sometimes succeed) in saving babies born so early that in the past they would have been considered miscarriages rather than live births. This reminds me of the popular liberal complaint that Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than the United States. Of course, that's just part of the story:

Most of the recent rise in infant deaths was attributed to neonates — babies less than 28 days old — particularly infants who died within the first week of life. Three causes accounted for most of the increase: birth defects, problems related to prematurity or low birth weight, and pregnancy complications.

Some experts suggest that part of the death rate may be caused by wider use of fertility treatment, resulting in more multiple births as well as babies born prematurely or with low birth weight.

None of this means that prematurity and infant mortality aren't problems. But, what it does mean is the problems aren't as a result of government decisions or shifting funding priorities (i.e. the "evil" Republicans hate poor babies). In other words, prematurity isn't rising because fewer people have access to health care than they did in the past. In fact, you could argue that the exact opposite is happening. There are more premature births precisely because America has the best health care in the world. Infertile women are given a chance to conceive and extraordinary measures are taken to save premature babies.

So, here's the funny part of the story. Apparently Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle initially declined to attend the breakfast (that's why Lawton was there). But, he was actually at the same hotel in a different meeting. Unfortunately for him, that meeting didn't have any press coverage. One of the smart March of Dimes workers went over and told the Governor that the press were covering the March of Dimes breakfast. Not surprisingly, he hightailed it on over to our meeting and spoke for a few minutes. There's more than a little irony in the fact that, after complaining that the federal government is trying to get out of helping Americans get access to health care (again, "evil" Republicans"), he talked about how important it is to his administration and what a priority infant health is. Of course, apparently it's only a priority if the press is there.

Hmmm, I think Wisconsin's 2006 gubernatorial race has begun. Hey Tommy Thompson, where you at?