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This video highlights one of the extreme consequences of medical negligence.

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'Black women in this country are dying' in pregnancy and childbirth due to healthcare inequalities

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NBC News Correspondent Zinhle Essamuah joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss her reporting on the black maternal health crisis for a new episode of Meet the Press Reports, now available on Peacock and Youtube.

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Hippocratic Oath, where medical school students must swear to do what is in the best interest of the patient and be free of harm

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This is a topic that directly affects me, as I am a black woman who also has family members, including my own mother, who have been affected by the implicit biases pushed on Black Women in the medical field. Medical negligence directly goes against the oath that many healthcare professionals must take before leaving medical school.

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What is medical negligence? | Law Partners

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The US Department of Labor has written that the morality rates of Black women is about 44 deaths per every 100,000 births, while that of white women was a small 17.9. These stats cause outrage and controversy among citizens, wondering what leads more black women to dying under the "same" medical treatment as women.

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This past December, Vice President Kamala Harris launched the first Maternal Health Day of Action and announced a White House call to action to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the United States. Vice President Harris described it as a crisis for Black mothers and stressed the urgency of "pursuing systemic policies that provide comprehensive, holistic maternal health care ... free from bias and discrimination."

Indeed, the U.S. has among the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and much of these deaths - 60%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - are preventable. And even within this context, the likelihood of dying from a pregnancy-related cause is 2.5 times higher for a Black woman in this country than for a white woman. In 2019, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 44.0 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 17.9 deaths among white women.

Why are Black maternal deaths occurring at such alarmingly high rates? One factor is implicit bias within the health system and among some health practitioners. From lack of access to quality care facilities to subpar treatment at the hands of providers, the legacy of racism in America continues to negatively affect Black health outcomes.

In a recent study, the National Institutes of Health found that healthcare providers were less likely to identify pain in the facial expressions of Black faces than on the countenances of non-Black ones. Because they couldn't see it, they were less likely to believe a Black patient was experiencing severe discomfort or acute pain. This research is echoed in the voices of many Black mothers who recounted stories of being devalued and disrespected by medical providers during pregnancy and childbirth.

Sadly, despite these increasingly common narratives about maternal deaths, the U.S. health care system has been slow to recognize the role of implicit bias and systemic racism in poor health outcomes for Black women, and especially the role it plays in their higher rates of maternal death. It's telling that this past December, an illustration of a Black baby in utero developed by a Nigerian medical student went viral because of the novelty of the image, with many respondents noting the rarity of darker skin tones in medical illustrations. Representation matters, and the absence of it, in textbooks and elsewhere, has disparate, and sometimes disastrous, consequences.

Medical and academic institutions are examining ways to tackle this crisis. Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine has revised its curriculum to incorporate training on the impact of implicit bias in medicine: "Medical students start learning about racism in health care during their first year, and as they go, they also learn how to communicate with patients from various cultures and backgrounds." At the state level, Michigan and California have made implicit bias training a requirement for healthcare provider licensure. The National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health has developed an action plan to assess their current policies and practices and determine the gaps that exist and the steps they can take to combat bias and discrimination in patient care.

Beyond the obvious impact on their physical, mental and emotional health, Black women may also face the devastating effect of these experiences on their financial well-being. The pregnancy complications resulting from racially motivated differences in treatment protocols may lengthen a woman's recovery time, which translates into extended, likely unpaid, leave from work. For those without the employment flexibility to return to their jobs after a prolonged absence, adverse health outcomes may lead to indefinite departures from the workforce.

Unfortunately, Black women face a unique double-bind of racialized medical mistreatment and the lack of paid leave that would allow them to recover physically from a medical ordeal without enduring long-term financial repercussions. In fact, Black women are statistically among the most likely to need leave but not take it, even when their own health is at stake. Implicit bias and the lack of a national paid leave program, including parental leave, is a real hardship for many and an obstacle to employment and economic security. For the countless women with told and untold stories of trauma, it is imperative that we both acknowledge and amplify Black women's voices in advocating for their health, and in doing so, rewrite the narratives around Black maternal health.

Learn more about the work of the Women's Bureau, including employment protections for workers who are pregnant or nursing.
Joan Harrigan-Farrelly is the deputy director of the Women's Bureau. Follow the bureau on Twitter at @WB_DOL.

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For Black Women, Implicit Racial Bias in Medicine May Have Far-Reaching Effects

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Representation matters, and the absence of it has disparate, and sometimes disastrous, consequences. Find out how medical and academic institutions are tackling the Black maternal health crisis in the U.S.

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I'd especially like to call attention to the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, the second paragraph of the "Healthcare Provider Prejudice or Bias" section

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A study done by the Institute of Medicine concluding that minorities often receive lower quality treatment than non-minorities, even at the cardiovascular level

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Looking gaunt but determined, 59-year old Robert Tools was introduced on August 21, 2001 as a medical miracle – the first surviving recipient of a fully implantable artificial heart. At a news conference, Tools spoke with emotion about his second chance at life and the quality of his care. His physicians looked on with obvious affection, grateful and honored to have extended Tools’ life. Mr. Tools has since lost his battle for life, but will be remembered as a hero for undergoing an experimental technology and paving the way for other patients to undergo the procedure. Moreover, the fact that Tools was African American and his doctors were white seemed, for most Americans, to symbolize the irrelevance of race in 2001. According to two recent polls, a significant majority of Americans believe that blacks like Tools receive the same quality of healthcare as whites (Lillie-Blanton et al., 2000; Morin, 2001).

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Wilson's book, "Womanist Bioethics" discusses the interconnections between religion, social justice, and the health of black women in America.

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Professor Wilson’s work lies at the intersection of religion, gender, and bioethics. Her academic interests also include rural bioethics and Black church studies. Prior to joining Duke Divinity School in 2020, she was a teaching faculty member at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. She has also served as visiting lecturer and research associate at the Harvard Divinity School Women’s Studies in Religion Program.

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Born in 1797, Truth was a woman's rights activist as well as an Evangelist. Her famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" shed light on the racism within feminism, and the difference between the treatment of white and black women in America.

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"I sell the shadow to support the substance." -- Sojourner Truth. Carte de Visite, circa 1864, in the collections of the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97513239/)

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert's master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children.

In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, "I did not run away, I walked away by daylight...." After experiencing a religious conversion, Isabella became an itinerant preacher and in 1843 changed her name to Sojourner Truth. During this period she became involved in the growing antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was involved in the woman's rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and women's rights speeches in American history, "Ain't I a Woman?" She continued to speak out for the rights of African Americans and women during and after the Civil War. Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Rights Convention, Old Stone Church (since demolished), Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.[1]

But Wait!
There is some controversy regarding Sojourner Truth's famous 'Ain't I a Woman?' Speech listed above. There are different versions of the speech. The popular 'Ain't I a Woman' Speech was first published by Frances Gage in 1863, 12 years after the speech itself. Another version was published a month after the speech was given in the Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson. In Robinson's Version the phrase 'Ain't I a Woman' is not present.

Compare the speeches and decide yourself at the Library of Congress or at The Sojourner Truth Project. [2]

[1] This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
[2] This article first appeared on the Women's Rights National Historical Park website.

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Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? (U.S. National Park Service)

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Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh.

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Law passed in Alabama in 2021 calling for a further understanding of the barriers of health care access as well as how socioeconomic status determines healthcare.

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Bill Text (2021-04-29) Maternal Mortality Review Committee, recognized, calling for continued funding [Assigned Act No. 2021-354.]

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Set of 13 bills looking to improve the healthcare quality of Black mothers

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the solution to America’s maternal health crisisIntroduced by Representative Lauren Underwood (D-IL), Representative Alma Adams (D-NC), and Senator Cor

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Law passed in Colorado causing the creation of the kidney disease prevention and education task force, and cites that Black Americans and Hispanic Americans are more likely to suffer from it than White Americans.

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As Bell Books said, when we fight for equality we often just expand the system of domination. While Black Americans now have the opportunity to see the same doctors and receive the same treatment, this leaves us vulnerable to receiving racism and microagressions on the medical level, which directly affects our physical and mental wellbeing.

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Systemic situations such as these give way to the idea that feminism cannot be individualistic. To call out and get rid of issues like this, we must band together to overcome oppression of the group.

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"Feminism is intertwined with fights to end race and class oppression" and this is a perfect example. This is not just a woman issue, and it is not just a Black American issue, it lies at the intersection of both.