{"id":5689,"date":"2020-08-03T16:52:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T20:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.providecare.org\/?p=5689"},"modified":"2024-09-16T17:18:49","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T17:18:49","slug":"national-call-birth-justice-accountability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.providecare.org\/blog\/national-call-birth-justice-accountability\/","title":{"rendered":"A National Call for Birth Justice and Accountability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Racism, not race, is killing Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in our maternity care system.<\/span><\/h2>\n
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On Saturday, July 25th, readers of the New York Times<\/em>\u00a0opened up their paper to find an entire page with an urgent policy platform and a moral question in bold type: How Many Black, Brown, and Indigenous People Have to Die Giving Birth?\u00a0<\/strong>The open letter <\/a>penned by birth and reproductive justice movement leaders, doulas, and midwives addresses the entire country and offers a vision and demands for a world where everyone can seek the type of care at birth that meets their needs and affirms their human rights.<\/p>\n

At Provide, we envision a healthcare system that cares for the whole person with dignity and respect, and where workers have the tools and support to offer the best care. We join the call for institutional and governmental accountability for birth justice and legal guarantees for safe, respectful, anti-racist care. <\/span>We encourage the Provide community to take action: add your name to the open letter<\/a>, share the information with your circles, and amplify the demands<\/a> for birth justice now!<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Background<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In the United States, women are more likely to die from complications of pregnancy and birth than in 54 other high-resource countries, and most of these deaths are preventable. For the first time, a woman is twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as her mother was a generation ago.<\/strong> This burden is not equally shared.<\/p>\n

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For Black,\u00a0Brown, and Indigenous people, childbirth in the U.S. is often not the joyous experience we all deserve. Too often, these communities are denied equal access to respectful, high-quality maternity care that is free from bias and discrimination. In maternity care units across the country, they are treated with condescension, disregard, neglect, and fear-based coercion. When asserting their rights to informed consent, bodily autonomy, and self determination, they are subject to surveillance and policing under the same systems of structural racism that discriminate, control, and criminalize.<\/p>\n

These injustices that start at birth took the lives of Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Shantel Davis, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, as well as Erica Garner, Shalon Irving, Kira Johnson, Amber Rose Isaac, Sha-Asia Washington, and too many other Black people who were victims of medical racism in the maternal health care system. That’s why birth justice matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quality, equitable, and respectful care in childbirth is an essential human right. It’s not enough to just talk about health equity. This is not just about implicit bias or the racism of individual providers. We need a complete systematic overhaul of the full spectrum of reproductive health care and maternity care in the U.S.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vision<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

We envision a reality where:<\/p>\n