maternal mortality

Bekah McNeel 6-08-2023

Holistic doula Ciara Clark, 34, labors in her birthing pool at her home birth in Toms River, N.J., Sept. 11, 2022. REUTERS/Joy Malone 

For 30 years before she was ordained, Rev. Morgan Gordy was a nurse in Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. She saw the link between poverty and death firsthand, and it often came down to lack of access to affordable health care.

Lauren W. Reliford 4-20-2023
A woman with dreadlocks and a pink shirt wears a purple pin says "Black Mamas Matter"

A woman wears a pin in support of Black mothers during a hearing titled, "Birthing While Black: Examining America's Black Maternal Health Crisis" on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 6, 2021. Reuters/Leah Millis

Our country is rolling back reproductive health access in the name of “choosing life” while refusing to support life’s development in utero and post-birth. We also have not ensured that people who give birth or care for children have paid family and medical leave, workplace protections, or even access to health care facilities. In states like Mississippi and Alabama, budget pressures are forcing many rural hospitals to close, cutting off the only point of care before, during, and after labor.

LaVonne Neff 3-19-2010

Soon, they tell us, Congress will or will not pass a health-care bill. Detractors think universal health care will raise health-care costs, lower health-care outcomes, and dangerously increase the power of the federal government.

Molly Marsh 9-10-2009

Promoting gender equality is crucial to combating global poverty, a point Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn make in their new book,