Black Maternal Health Awareness Week is held annually on April 11-17 during National Minority Health Awareness Month to raise awareness about health disparities impacting racial and ethnic minorities and encourage action toward dismantling systems of oppression. 

 Researchers call the United States the most-dangerous developed country in which to give birth.  About 700 women die each year in the U.S. as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications.  One in three maternal deaths is preventable.  A National Institute of Health-funded study found that Black women are three times more likely to die than White women from a pregnancy-related cause.  Maternal death disparities were concentrated in postpartum cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease) and preeclampsia and eclampsia.  The mortality rate for Black women was five times higher than White women in postpartum cardiomyopathy and preeclampsia and eclampsia.   College-educated Black women have over five times higher pregnancy-related mortality than white women of similar education

Since 2018, over 21,000 infants have died each year in their first year of life.  Black infants are two to three times more likely to die than White infants in their first year of life.  The leading causes of infant mortality are birth defects, preterm birth, injuries, sudden infant death syndrome, and pregnancy complications.  The amount of infant deaths is much higher if miscarriages are factored in.  For known pregnancies, 11-16% of pregnancies end in a spontaneous loss of the pregnancy before the 20th week.  Most miscarriages occur because the fetus is not developing as anticipated.

With such high numbers of miscarriages, infant deaths, and maternal deaths one might assume that these issues are well known among women.  However, many women report an unawareness of the issues and the available resources for grieving families. 

Losing a baby or spouse due to pregnancy or delivery complications is tragic.  For Black families, the pain of losing a loved one can be exacerbated by systemic racism, prejudices, implicit bias, microaggressions, and other forms of oppression.  

EDITORS NOTE:  Given the current attack on women’s reproductive rights, authorities have said more deaths of both Black and White women will occur.  What an unconscionable, cruel state of affairs.

Amy Coney Barrett testified in her confirmation hearing that her past associations, nor her "PERSONAL"  opinions, would affect her actions while serving on the Supreme Court.  Now this revelation!

Harvard Radcliffe Institute held a major public conference January 26–27, 2023, to probe the complex and unpredictable ways that Roe v. Wade and its aftermath shaped the United States and the world beyond it for nearly half a century. The existential issue of abortion—and the galvanizing impact of Roe in particular—transformed the nation’s politics and public policy and its social movement energies, as well as the operations of the courtroom and the clinic. This opening session of the conference featured speakers with a range of perspectives from the front lines of debates about abortion, birth, and birth disparities. Each told stories from their work and talked about the work of stories in their own social movement and thought leadership.

Program, Thursday, January 26, 2023

Welcome Jane Kamensky, Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences 4:28 Framing Remarks Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and founding director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of Law Presentations 20:32 Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director, We Testify 36:36 Catherine Davis, founder and president, The Restoration Project 48:46 Getty Israel, founder and CEO, Sisters in Birth, Inc. 1:04:48 Moderated Conversation with Speakers Moderator: Michele Bratcher Goodwin Close of Program Jane Kamensky

For information about Harvard Radcliffe Institute and its many public programs, visit https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RadcliffeIns... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radcliffe.i... LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radc... Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RadInstitute

https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/about-us/

We work to ensure that no one loses their rights because of pregnancy or because of their capacity for pregnancy, focusing on pregnant people who are most at risk of state control and criminalization: those who are low-income, of color, and drug-using.

We've maintained this mission since we were first established in 2001 as National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

We are guided by the principles of reproductive justice, a human rights framework created and led by Black women. SisterSong defines reproductive justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. Reproductive justice recognizes the interconnectedness of movements toward justice. Reproductive justice is environmental justice, immigrant justice, racial justice, economic justice, and trans justice.

The criminal legal system and family regulation system should never be involved in pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes.

All people are entitled to dignity, equality, and respect regardless of race, religion, national origin, immigration status, disability, gender, sexual orientation, capacity for pregnancy, or pregnancy.

The threat of pregnancy criminalization, like the criminal legal system itself, targets communities of color and is deeply rooted in racism. Even though our work requires that we engage with these systems, we must also commit to dismantling oppressive systems.

How?  You may ask.  The answer is simple – ballot measures – but the execution takes careful planning, hard work and financing.

According to Wikipedia: The Fairness Project is a United States 501(c)(4) charitable organization created in October 2015. They promote general economic and social justice throughout the US by the use of ballot measures to circumvent deadlocks in law changes by the legislative and executive branches of government. They act as a national body by supporting state organizations and campaigns with targeted funding rather than by direct campaigning. They support the gathering of signatures to meet the variable requirements to trigger ballots in states and then aid the campaigns with early financial backing, strategic advice, and various campaign tools.

The Project seeks to raise state minimum wages, both through stepped annual increases and through elimination of the tip credit exemption. It has expanded Medicaid coverage and provided funding in the most expensive ballot campaigns ever fought. Usually alongside their other campaigns, the Fairness Project has supported improving paid sick leave coverage. Following Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Project has also supported legalizing abortion via statewide ballot initiatives. The Project has supported 17 proposals in total, of which 16 have passed. Concerns have arisen about the lack of transparency of non-state organizations like the Fairness Project influencing local decisions.

The following is the March 6, 2023, media release from The Fairness Project, proudly explaining who they are and what they do.

Fairness Project Featured on NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’

Washington, DC — On Friday, the Fairness Project was featured on NPR’s flagship news show, All Things Considered, which highlighted the nonpartisan nonprofit’s record of winning ballot measure campaigns on progressive issues in red and purple states. Since its founding in 2016, the Fairness Project has won over 30 ballot measure campaigns to advance economic and social justice in 17 states, including passing Medicaid expansion in seven states and raising the minimum wage in nine.

LISTEN: This group gets left-leaning policies passed in red states. How? Ballot measures

“The Fairness Project is the brainchild of a large health care workers’ union in California. It helps fund ballot measures for traditionally left-of-center issues and it provides extensive research into what messages will sway the largest number of voters. [Executive Director Kelly] Hall says, for example, to make a Trump voter feel good about expanding Medicaid coverage: ‘Folks who can separate this issue from their partisan identity are the people who get us over the finish line in these conservative states.’

“And they’ve won a lot. With the Fairness Project’s support, campaigns to raise the minimum wage and expand Medicaid have won not just in Missouri, but in nine red or purple states. Now they’re taking on abortion rights .The group also worked on a ballot measure in Michigan last year which codified access to reproductive health care, including abortion. They’re exploring more of these measures for 2024.”

Last year, the Fairness Project won eight ballot measure campaigns: defending reproductive rights in Michigan and Vermont; raising the minimum wage to $15 in Nebraska; expanding Medicaid to 40,000 low-income South Dakotans; reining in predatory medical debt collectors in Arizona; increasing civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff; and defending direct democracy in Arkansas and South Dakota. Since 2016 the Fairness Project has won a total of 31 campaigns in 17 states across the country.

Continue reading and listening on NPR here.

IS YOUR STATE NEXT FOR THIS IMPORTANT WORK?

EDITORS NOTE:  See the Resource Library on womensvoicesmedia.org.  It provides information and help on this and many other issues, concerns, and interests by, for and about women.