Stop Pretending This Health Care System Cares About Pregnant Women

The C-section lasted 17 minutes. The neglect lasted for over 10 hours. Just hours following the birth of her child, Kira Johnson became one of the 50.3 Black maternal deaths that occur per 100,000 births — a rate significantly higher than that of other racial groups. Her death symbolizes not only an ongoing medical crisis, but also a political one. Women are being denied adequate health care in the current oppressive health care system.

One way we could combat this health care system is via the framework of Democratic Equality, which demands that all citizens have basic capabilities needed to function as an independent citizen (voting, working, etc.). In this idea, health care is not optional, but a necessity because untreated illnesses can take away a person’s independence, therefore violating Democratic Equality.

Unfortunately, our current health care system violates Democratic Equality in many ways, and the way marginalized women experience maternal health care in this country is a prime example. Democratic Equality fights against the exploitation or abandonment of anyone, yet that is exactly what the American health care system does to pregnant women. Maternity health care deserts are present in 35% of U.S. counties, meaning over a third of American counties lack adequate prenatal, delivery, or postpartum care, and one in every six Black babies is born in these deserts. This high number is not a coincidence; rather it shows our government decides who deserves safe motherhood and who doesn’t.

Furthermore, when an entire community is denied adequate maternal health care, it is not just unequal access, but a symbol of state-supported neglect. As health policy scholar Seth Berkowitz concludes, social structures shape someone’s life chances long before they are born. So, babies born in maternal health care deserts have little opportunity for healthy beginnings and healthy lives.

Abandonment doesn’t end with ZIP codes; it is brought into exam rooms, too. Black women constantly report doctors ignoring their concerns, and studies reveal that numerous doctors believe Black women to be “overly emotional.” Kira Johnson’s death is an example of this treatment; it was the outcome of a system that treats the pain of marginalized women as optional. A federal investigation even found a pattern of neglect for Black patients at the hospital Johnson passed away in. These abandoned women make up the overall 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births. Every statistic is a human, a death that could have been prevented, if our system did not serve only a hand-picked few.

Implementing Democratic Equality, however, would require the establishment of quality pregnancy care and therefore root out maternal health care inequality.

Countries that value mothers prove what equitable maternity care looks like. Across many European nations, women are required to have health check-ups and screenings throughout pregnancy, all for free. Mothers are also cared for post birth, when the majority of pregnancy-related deaths occur, with routine home visits and mental health checkups. This results in the European Union maternal mortality rate being less than half of the U.S. rate.

The solution Democratic Equality would bring to the problem of maternal mortality, therefore, would be strongly rooted in universal health care. Universal health care reflects Democratic Equality’s core principle: All citizens are ensured equal capabilities needed to function.

Establishing universal health care for pregnant women at the very least is not an impossible task. The outline is simple and repeated over and over by scientists: Increase research on pregnancy, invest more in treatments, and include all women in studies. For a country that likes to boast of its duty of “liberty and justice for all,” it is a shame such a deep cycle of oppression has been built into the health care industry, or system (as an industry works in favor of money), that has killed and will continue to kill women from marginalized backgrounds.

Every preventable maternal death is a reminder that our democracy means nothing if it cannot protect its citizens. If nothing is changed, systemic abandonment of the most vulnerable will continue and slowly consume every community through the growing losses. Inequality also further deepens in this cycle of oppression, and marginalized women have to pay the price through their health. Refusal for change from the system just highlights the fact money is valued over human life. Change needs to happen and it needs to happen now.

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