Unusually High Still-Born Rate for FLDS: Debunked

Proof that Flora Jessop & K Dee Ignatin's accusation of abnormally high numbers of still-born babies is completely false.

Flora Jessop and K. Dee Ignatin have trampled and desecrated FLDS grave yards in their quest to show supporters that the FLDS have a shockingly high number of miscarriages and still-births and allege this is due to incest.  Once again they have no real evidence that the numbers are higher than the rest of the population.  K Dee posted copies of grave records on a blog and shops them around to various news outlets as proof.  They certainly are inflammatory but they don't prove anything unless they are compared to what is considered normal.  Has anybody looked at these records and analyzed them or compared them to the national average?

I counted 85 babies who were either noted as still-born, died at birth or lived less than a day.  We don't know if those babies were beyond 20 weeks gestation which would qualify them as still-born or if they were under 20 weeks and classified as miscarriages.  For the sake of this argument lets assume that all of the graves are stillborn's. This is the allegation Flora has made - there is an abnormally high number of stillborn babies; so we'll assume ALL of the babies are stillborn to give Flora a leg-up in her argument.

The total population of the Colorado City area from the census bureau is around 4,000 with 62% reporting they are married so that makes around 2,480 married adults.  Assuming half of them are women (which would be an ironic under-estimate since we're talking about polygamists) a minimum of 1,240 are married women.  Since we're testing Flora's argument we can assume they are all trying to get pregnant and there are at least two or three times the number of women as there are men.  So even if only 1/2 to 1/3 of them conceived we are still in good shape with our estimate of roughly 1,200 pregnancies.  If each of these women conceived statistically 12 stillbirths could normally be expected based on the information here:

Stillbirth is the death of an infant in-utero and past 20 completed gestational weeks. It can happen before or during the onset of labor and can happen to any woman. About 1 in 100 pregnancies will end with the death of a baby to stillbirth  

The burial records provided by Ignatin document graves from the 30's to 2003 spanning about 70 years.  There would have to be over 800 infant graves to equal what the secular medical community considers statistically normal for that span of time (12 per year for 70 years).  Years 1992 and 1996 of the burial records had the  highest number of stillbirths in a given year with 5 per year - less than half of the 12 per year than would statistically be expected  given the population of child-bearing women.

If there was evidence of over 800 graves in the baby cemetery we would have heard about it loudly and shrilly.  K Dee posted on the Sister Wives blog a photo of a baby cemetery she charmingly refers to as the "Junk Yard Cemetery".  They fret and whip people up over what turns out to be a normal number of infant graves for the population.

Do you think Flora and K Dee will be relieved to find out all their fretting over stillborn FLDS babies has been much ado about nothing?

Bigots and Polygamy

When the issue of polygamy comes up invariably the word "Mormon" is not far behind. Even though the LDS church has not practiced polygamy for some time they are still reviled because historically they did.  It is not uncommon to see comments such as, "The LDS church needs to acknowledge their seedy history."  Opponents of the Mormon church feel justified in vicious attacks against the religion and its members because they have polygamy to hold up as proof of being "ungodly" or even evil.

Many religions have historically practiced polygamy including Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhists and Sikhs.  Although polygamy by some of these religions wasn't outlawed by their leadership until the 1900's these religions are not called upon to acknowledge their "seedy history".

Perhaps the most vocal of the detractors against Mormons are the devoutly Christian.  I wonder if they would be so vicious in their assessment if they took the time for introspection and realized that Christians are not bystanders in the polygamy issue.  Throughout the bible there are at least forty references to men who had multiple wives.  Men like Moses, who had two wives; Zipporah and the Ethiopian woman referred to in Numbers 12:1.  David had many wives as described in the book of Samuel.  Solomon, Abraham, Gideon, Jacob ... all Godly men according to the bible and Christian tradition ... all polygamists.  Polygamy was being practiced in Judaism up until 393 A.D. when it was outlawed by Theodosius.  The Jewish people openly practiced polygamy during the time Jesus was alive, yet nowhere in the scriptures does Jesus or his disciples denounce the practice. 

Not one religion has clean hands when it comes to a history of polygamy yet only one religion is aggressively vilified and identified by it.  Separating a single group out and demonizing a practice that every other religious group shares in its history with impunity must be confronted.  So I ask those who sneer at the Mormons - especially the Christians who are so horrified by the polygamist history of Mormons:  why is the Mormon history of polygamy so much more egregious than your own?  With multiple examples of polygamy being practiced by men supposedly in good standing with God in the bible and a distinct lack of it being denounced or named a sin anywhere in the bible where do you draw your righteous indignation from?  

I'm not arguing for or against polygamy.  I'm interested to know how members of one religion can point a disapproving finger at another one for practices or beliefs that are a fundamental part of their own history.  How can Christians glow over beloved bible stories that depict and glorify polygamy (Abraham, Sarah and Hagaar) yet harshly judge another sect for their participation in it?  

Once their own history with polygamy is brought to light and held up for all to see, maybe these detractors with their shrill bigotry won't be so eager to use it as a club to beat the Mormons over the head with.