It’s an American crisis that was long ignored at the government’s highest levels: Black women in the U.S. are roughly three times more likely to die giving birth than white women. Now, breaking new ground for a vice president, Kamala Harris is calling for sweeping action to curb racial inequities in pregnancy and childbirth.
“With every day that goes by and every woman who dies, the need for action grows more urgent,” Harris told STAT in an emailed interview.
Harris emphasized that health care is profoundly affected by implicit bias. The vice president spoke about the need to address that bias, the broader Black maternal health crisis in America, and how the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated racial inequities in health care. Harris’s advocacy for the issue is notable because no president or vice president has so focused on this as so urgent a matter facing the country. She said “it is my responsibility’’ as vice president “to stand up for everyone, and especially those who have been historically left out or left behind.’’
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