A program to help fight obstetric racism in California is facing a lawsuit following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found affirmative action at college universities to be unconstitutional.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women are three to four times more likely to die in labor or from related complications than white women in the United States, and Abundant Birth Project provides monthly stipends to help Black and Pacific Islander moms receive proper medical care in San Francisco. However, conservative groups are suing the program, claiming it discriminates by providing grants based on race.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Ruth Parker and Ellen Lee Zhou from the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation filed the lawsuit last May to “halt the illegal use of government resources and public funds to provide cash benefits to San Francisco residents on a discriminatory basis.”
“Most prominently, these government-sponsored and publicly funded programs are
designed to select beneficiaries on a racially exclusionary basis,” reads the lawsuit. “This is unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit also targets guaranteed-income programs that help artists, Black young adults and transgender people, claiming the programs “select beneficiaries on a racially exclusionary basis.”
Abundant Birth Project was created in 2021 to “reduce preterm birth” to ensure that “all children have a healthy start at life.”
Black infants are twice as likely than white babies to be born prematurely and to die before they turn 1. Asian American infants are 40 percent more likely to die from complications during childbirth than white mothers, and Black and Native American women are three and two times higher, respectively, to have pregnancy-related deaths compared to white women.
One young mother and recipient of the program, 20-year-old Briana Jones, recalled being 15, terrified and crying out after…
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