Several right-wing groups are suing the City of San Francisco over a program that helps support pregnant Black women, who studies show have statistically higher rates of maternal death. Black families also experience statistically higher rates of premature birth and infant death.
“Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in April. “Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, such as variation in quality healthcare, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias. Social determinants of health prevent many people from racial and ethnic minority groups from having fair opportunities for economic, physical, and emotional health.”
The University of California San Francisco reports, “In San Francisco, Black infants are almost twice as likely to be born prematurely compared with White infants (13.8% versus 7.3%, from 2012-2016) and Pacific Islander infants have the second-highest preterm birth rate (10.4%).” UCSF also reports, “Black families account for half of the maternal deaths and over 15% of infant deaths, despite representing only 4% of all births. Pacific Islander families face similar disparities.”
Enter the Abundant Birth Project, which began in San Francisco. It says it “provides unconditional cash supplements to communities experiencing disproportionately high rates of adverse outcomes as a strategy to reduce preterm birth and improve economic outcomes.” ABP began as a “fully-funded public-private partnership,” and its success has led it to expand into more counties in California.
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But according to The 19th, a nonprofit independent newsroom, “Conservative groups have sued to shut down the Abundant Birth Project, part of a national backlash against affirmative action in health care.” The 19th adds that the “project has provided 150 pregnant Black and Pacific Islander San Franciscans a $1,000 monthly stipend.”
The “future of the Abundant Birth Project is clouded by a lawsuit alleging that the program, the first of its kind in the nation, illegally discriminates by giving the stipend only to people of a specific race. The lawsuit also targets San Francisco guaranteed-income programs serving artists, transgender people and Black young adults.”
The lawsuit calls the stipends “discriminatory payment schemes,” and seeks to stop the use of “government resources or public funds to support these unlawful programs so long as such they discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender/gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
The 19th lists several “activist nonprofit groups and law firms [that] are leading the charge” against affirmative action in health care. “Do No Harm, a nonprofit formed in 2022, has sued health commissions, pharmaceutical companies and public health journals to try to stop them from choosing applicants based on race. Do No Harm claims more than 6,000 members worldwide and partners with nonprofit legal organizations, most notably the Pacific Legal Foundation, which garnered national attention when it defended California’s same-sex marriage ban.”
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Also, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and the American Civil Rights Project, “filed the lawsuit against the city of San Francisco and the state of California over the Abundant Birth Project, alleging the program violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment by granting money exclusively to Black and Pacific Islander women. The 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to give rights to formerly enslaved Black people.”
Mara Gay, a member of The New York Times’ editorial board and an MSNBC contributor responded to news of the lawsuit by saying, “Imagine how sick your soul has to be to spend time and money on this.”
Uché Blackstock, an emergency physician and author also responded to the news, writing on social media: “Today, Black babies are more than 2x as likely to die in their 1st year than white babies, due to racism – a wider disparity now than 15 yrs b4 the end of slavery (white enslavers had a $$ interest in keeping Black babies alive!!!).”
“These suits are sick and the intent is clear,” added Dr. Blackstock, who is the author of “Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine.”
“WHITE LAWYERS V. BLACK BABIES,” wrote attorney and activist Cornell William Brooks, a former president and CEO of the NAACP. “The race specific bias of American medicine means Black babies die 2.4 x the rate of White babies. SO conservative legal groups sue a program for helping Black mothers. Why? It is race specific #AffirmativeAction 4 dying babies. Outrageous.”
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