Reproductive Justice, Maternal Mortality and Black Women

Professor Monica McLemore, PhD, MPH, and RN, is a preeminent scholar of anti-racist birth equity research. In this half-hour conversation that I produced for International Women’s Day 2023, Professor McLemore shares an overview of the Reproductive Justice framework. She elaborates on why maternal mortality has doubled in the U.S over the last 35 years. She talks about the many factors that lead Black women to be 3 to 4 times more likely than white women to have life-threatening pregnancy-related conditions, and how for Black women even wealth doesn’t help. She describes her vision, rooted in Reproductive Justice, of what political, medical, and social changes are needed for reproductive health in America.