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