It can be easy to assume that healthcare is accessible in 21st century America, but our nation’s long and continued history of racial discrimination also extends into the realm of medical care. Maternal mortality remains to be an issue that never gains media or national attention and the United States carries one of the highest rates in the world. Furthermore, African American women are three times more likely to die due to complications during pregnancy and black infants are twice as likely to die as white infants. The New York Times reports that for Hispanic women, 11.4 women die for every 100,000 live births while 42.8 African American women die. This risk increases with age and in most cases, these complications are easily preventable.
“No one took appropriate action”, Charles Johnson, a widowed father of two, said concerning the internal bleeding his wife had while having a routine C section during her second pregnancy. In a report conducted by Refinery 29, he felt a lack of concern and compassion by the doctors and other medical staff for his wife’s critical state. This unequal treatment that Johnson’s wife received is not at all uncommon among black women. In the same report done by Refinery 29, black women have experienced similar microaggressions and mistreatments of not feeling prioritized, treated equally or with respect by doctors.
Just like other forms of racial discrimination, the treatment that black women face in hospitals and doctor’s offices date back to the founding of the United States. Within the history of slavery in this country, the notion that blacks were subhuman or did not feel pain like whites was a common belief that drove racist practices and unjust treatment. In the 1830s, Dr. Marion Sims experimented on black women his work for gynecological diseases, never using anesthetics on the women he treated as animals. Similarly, the Mississippi Appendectomy had black women sterilized against their will. These examples were not isolated events in history, but part of a pattern of racial discrimination that continues today. Going beyond socioeconomic status, complications for black women giving birth today can be largely attributed to layers of unhealthy, built-up stress created by the racism our society still propagates today.
But there are current efforts in fighting racial bias in maternal mortality. Presidential candidates for 2020 Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Elizabeth Warren are bringing awareness to these alarming rates of maternal mortality for women of color on their own campaigns. Additionally, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act passed in 2018 gives states grants for the purpose of investigating deaths related to pregnancy up to a year after birth.
Giving birth should be a safe and healthy experience for all women, regardless of race. The phrase “universal healthcare” is largely prevalent in today’s political climate, but regardless of its controversial and popular status, never seems to address maternal mortality and the racial disparity it carries within. But healthcare for all should extend to women of color and include maternal mortality in the conversation going forward.
