Cuba Uses Abortion to Keep Infant Mortality Low

cuba boasts of its very low infant mortality rate: at 5.3 deaths per 1,000 births, lower than the U.S. (at 6.0 per 1,000 births) and much lower than the rest of Latin America.

but a few things look suspicious.

first, Cuba published its 2006 figures TWO DAYS after 2006 was over. the U.S. takes two years to do the same thing (last available figures for the U.S. are for 2004).

most alarming of all is the emphasis that Cuba puts on that figure. it is its showcase statistic, the one brandied about when any criticism of the system comes up. "Yeah, we may arrest journalists and beat opposition members up, but our infant mortality rate is lower than the U.S."

and how exactly is that managed?

Some doctors say they were told to use any means possible to keep the infant mortality rate low. Jesús Monzón, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Pinar del Río until he left in 1995, says pregnant mothers were required to appear monthly for sonograms and other tests to make certain the fetus was healthy.

''If there was any malformation in the fetus, they would interrupt the pregnancy,'' said Monzón, now a lab technician at Mercy Hospital in Miami. A heart murmur or other serious problems required an abortion. This was ''automatic,'' he said. If the mother objected, a team from the hospital would persuade her an abortion was necessary.

Other sources also say abortion is a tool used to keep infant mortality low, including Andy Gomez at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, and Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a retired University of Pittsburgh economics professor who has spent decades studying Cuba.

Recent Cuba abortion data is not available, but a study by the Pan American Health Organization from 1998 states Cuba had 70 abortions per 100 deliveries in 1992 and 59.4 in 1996, far higher than the 34 to 38 abortions per 100 live births reported during that time in the United States.

Néstor Viamonte, a primary-care doctor in Ciego de Aguila until 2003, says all Cuban doctors are told to focus on babies. Infants under 1 and those with serious chronic diseases were the only ones who could get in to see a doctor without waiting days for an appointment.

Mothers were required to bring in their babies monthly for examinations. Babies who died in the first month were reported to have died before birth to keep the numbers low, Viamonte said.

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