Mississippi’s Self-Inflicted Wound: A “Pro-Baby, Not Pro-Life” Crisis

5 minutes read time.

With a tone of solemn urgency, Mississippi’s State Health Officer, Dr. Dan Edney, declared a public health emergency this week, lamenting that “too many Mississippi families are losing their babies before their first birthday.” The declaration was a response to a grim and horrifying new set of statistics: the state’s infant mortality rate has soared to its highest level in over a decade, a crisis disproportionately killing Black babies at a rate that is skyrocketing. While Dr. Edney’s call to action is undoubtedly sincere, the entire spectacle reeks of a profound and infuriating hypocrisy. This is not an unforeseen tragedy that has suddenly befallen the state of Mississippi. This is a self-inflicted wound. It is the direct, predictable, and preventable outcome of years of deliberate, politically-motivated policy failures by the state’s governors and legislatures, who have systematically dismantled the public health safety net for mothers and children. This crisis exposes a dark truth at the heart of Southern politics: a philosophy that is, as its critics have long charged, not pro-life, but merely pro-baby, obsessed with birth but callously indifferent to the life that follows.

The Stark Reality of the Numbers

The data released by the Mississippi State Department of Health is a portrait of a state failing its most vulnerable citizens. The overall infant mortality rate has climbed to 9.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births, nearly double the national average. Since 2014, more than 3,500 infants in the state have died before their first birthday. But the most damning statistic is the one that exposes the racial heart of this crisis. While the infant mortality rate for white babies in Mississippi has actually declined for three consecutive years, the rate for Black babies has skyrocketed, jumping an astonishing 24% in a single year, from an already high 12.3 to a staggering 15.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. This is not just a public health crisis; it is a racial justice crisis, a clear and undeniable sign that the burden of the state’s policy failures is falling most heavily on its Black communities.

The Self-Inflicted Wounds: A Deliberate Policy of Neglect

The state’s “oh no, we’re in crisis” vibe is particularly galling given that the leading causes of these deaths—preterm birth, low birth weight, and congenital malformations—are precisely the outcomes that are known to be mitigated by comprehensive maternal healthcare. And for years, Mississippi’s political leadership has actively and proudly worked to deny that very care to its poorest citizens. The most significant self-inflicted wound is the state’s stubborn refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Mississippi remains one of only 10 states to hold out, a decision made purely for partisan political reasons. This is not a theoretical debate; the life-saving impact of Medicaid expansion is a documented fact. In neighboring states that did expand coverage, the results have been dramatic. Arkansas reported a 29% reduction in Black infant mortality in the five years following expansion. Louisiana saw significant increases in early prenatal care and decreases in premature births. A national analysis found a 50% greater reduction in infant mortality in expansion states, with the steepest gains among Black infants. Mississippi’s leaders have seen this evidence and have chosen, year after year, to reject it, a decision that is now being paid for with the lives of their state’s children.

This refusal to expand Medicaid is compounded by a federal war on data and social programs. The Felonious Punk administration has targeted for elimination the very CDC programs, like the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), that states like Mississippi rely on to track and understand the drivers of infant mortality. “Without robust data, we are flying blind,” one expert warned. Furthermore, the administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and its work requirements for Medicaid threaten to push tens of thousands more Mississippians off the insurance rolls, further destabilizing the rural hospitals that are the last line of defense in the state’s vast “maternity care deserts.”

The Hypocrisy of a “Pro-Baby” State

The Mississippi Department of Health’s emergency plan is filled with well-intentioned and necessary steps: activating an obstetrics system of care, expanding community health worker programs, and strengthening home visiting services. But these are band-aids on a gaping, self-inflicted wound. As Dr. Rebekah Gee, the former Louisiana health secretary, stated, “Healthy babies come from healthy moms. If women can’t get continuous healthcare before, during, and after pregnancy, it is no surprise their babies are dying at higher rates.” You cannot claim to be committed to saving infant lives while simultaneously championing policies that deny healthcare to their mothers. You cannot wring your hands over a crisis while actively defunding the tools needed to understand and solve it. Mississippi’s emergency declaration is a tacit admission that its political ideology has failed. The question now is whether the state’s leaders will have the courage to reverse the disastrous policy choices that created this preventable tragedy, or if they will continue to prove their critics right: that their concern for life ends at the moment of birth.