This story was originally published by ProPublica. Tierra Walker had reached her limit. In the weeks since she’d learned she was pregnant, the 37-year-old dental assistant had been wracked by unexplained seizures and mostly confined to a hospital cot. With soaring blood pressure and diabetes, she knew she was at high risk of developing preeclampsia, […]
abortion
Posted inHealth, Maternal Health, Partner Content
A Brain-Dead Pregnant Black Woman Was Kept Alive in Georgia. It’s Unclear if State Law Required It.
Originally published by KFF Health News A Georgia woman declared brain-dead and kept on life support for more than three months because she was pregnant was removed from a ventilator in June and died, days after doctors delivered her 1-pound, 13-ounce baby by emergency cesarean section. The baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit. […]
Posted inHealth, Maternal Health
Baby Born to Brain-Dead Mom Spurs Lawmaker’s Push to Protect Women’s Rights
Adriana Smith, the Georgia woman declared brain-dead in February and then kept on life support, has a new son. Chance, weighing just 1 pound and 13 ounces, arrived June 13. Smith’s family announced she was taken off life support on Tuesday. In the wake of the controversy surrounding Smith’s complex situation, U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams […]
Posted inMaternal Health, Politics & Policy, Reproductive Health
Post Election, Black Women Strategize to Ensure Reproductive Rights for All
Nearly 90% of Black women in America voted for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the first among them to ascend to the highest office in the nation. And while her loss is hard for her supporters to accept, many of them say the patchwork collection of laws that is emerging after this month’s election […]
Posted inMaternal Health, Partner Content, Politics & Policy, Reproductive Health
A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban
This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Wrapping his wife in a blanket as she mourned the loss of her pregnancy at 11 weeks, Hope Ngumezi wondered why no obstetrician was coming to see her. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Education, Environmental Justice, LGBTQ, Politics & Policy, Reproductive Health
What Trump’s Second Term Could Look Like for Black Americans
The dread many Black Americans feel about Donald Trump’s triumph in the 2024 presidential election isn’t misplaced: He organized his reelection campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris around revenge — around how he and his allies can inflict the greatest amount of suffering on vulnerable groups and on those he considers enemies. Making things worse, […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity, Maternal Health
The Post-Dobbs Reality for Black Maternal and Infant Health
To reproductive justice activist Renee Bracey Sherman, theirs are the forgotten names. Women like Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old medical assistant from Georgia, who suffered a rare complication from a medication abortion in August 2022 and died after waiting 20 hours for an emergency surgery to remove fetal tissue from her body. Thurman’s physicians worried that […]
Posted inNews, Partner Content, Politics & Policy
Fact-Check: How Accurate is Harris On Abortion, Economy, Criminal Justice, Trump?
Within a half-hour of announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential campaign, President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination. “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” Biden said in a July […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics & Policy, Reproductive Health
The Black Reproductive Justice Leaders in a Post-Dobbs Era
Unknowns loom, and uncertainty lingers. It’s been two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, striking down the federal right to an abortion, limiting access in many states, and potentially exacerbating disparities in who’s most likely to suffer severe complications in maternal health and die. Women wonder whether their doctors should know […]
Posted inCourts
Your Guide to This Year’s Major Supreme Court Cases
Her words sounded ominous, like a warning. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the bench’s most senior liberal member, recently recalled that, on some days, she returns to her office after the announcement of a gut-wrenching decision, closes her door — and cries: “There have been those days,” she lamented. “And there are likely to […]