Where the Safety Net Won’t Catch Us: How Obamacare Fails Black Women on Maternal Health
September 30, 2013I am what I like to think of as a “young and fun” 20-something. I am a healthy young adult with a decent education and income, and I feel safe in my neighborhood. But the growing sense of my own mortality haunts me. Specifically, what haunts me is that I am a Black woman living in the United States, and I hope to create a family by giving birth some day. As a reproductive health advocate, and someone who is particularly interested in maternal health, I am all too aware of the weight of the evidence against me. When it comes to seamless and successful conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery, the odds are not in my favor.
I am the product of a nation in which Black women—regardless of their income or education levels—are more likely than their white counterparts to experience poor pregnancy outcomes.