Mercedes Wells begged nurses to listen. She was in active labor and in severe pain. However, instead of being treated, she was dismissed and discharged by hospital staff. Soon after, she gave birth on the side of an Indiana highway, alone, without adequate care — putting her and her baby’s health at risk. As a Black woman, Wells notes in an interview that the nurses were all white, and that she “felt ignored [and] disregarded as a whole.”
At the Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite, Kiara Jones faced a similar situation. Despite her pleas for help, she was forced to wait more than half an hour in a triage room before delivering her baby after a rushed last-minute admission.
Both Black women were dismissed because medical professionals assumed they were lying. The medical system too often treats pregnant women, especially Black women, as unreliable narrators of their own bodies. These assumptions lead to many cases of medical neglect.
The numbers are staggering. The World Health Organization (WHO), in a released data, shows that in 2020, an estimated 800 women died every day from preventable causes relating to maternal health complications — one death every two minutes, despite the fact that an estimated 98% of these deaths are preventable. The statistics are worse for Black women, even when they seek prenatal care: The risk of maternal death for Black women is four times higher in all trimesters compared to white women. We are not witnessing biological inevitabilities, but preventable suffering created by a culture that treats women’s suffering as “natural” and women’s autonomy as optional.
We often hear that women are “naturally” caregivers, “naturally” responsible for children, and “naturally” belong in domestic spaces, a perspective that stems from religion. Many deny these phrases when stated explicitly, but when attached to pregnancy, these ideas feel “natural”: suffering is portrayed as inevitable rather than preventable. Pregnancy is framed as a duty. A miscarriage is the woman’s fault. Maternal death is unfortunate, but “natural.” “Nature” dictates everything, such as what risks pregnant women should silently endure, how much pain they should tolerate, and at which point their labor dictates a medical emergency. But nothing about the experiences of Wells or Jones, or the millions of preventable deaths worldwide, is “natural.”
What we mistake for natural occurrences are moral enforcements by a corrupt, sexist, and racist medical culture. The medical system’s willful ignorance towards pregnant women is not biology; it is sexism and racism dressed up as nature.
There are mainly two types of sexism: hostile and benevolent sexism. Wells’ and Jones’ situations are examples of hostile sexism. However, benevolent sexism is also common in the medical field, justifying and perpetuating the subordination of women. In particular, the medical field frames pregnancy as requiring constant protection, legitimizing interventions and restrictions. Enforced under the guise of protecting the fetus, “sexism was related to willingness to restrict pregnant women’s choices.” For example, in the past, doctors recommended bed rest to pregnant women, limiting their physical activity. Even now, most people think that lying in bed all day when pregnant seems like a good idea. Although rest is much needed, doctors have proven that bed rest carries many risks, such as “blood clots, loss of bone mass, and a loss of conditioning in the heart, lungs, and muscles.”
As a Christian woman, I am especially troubled by how many of these restrictions are defended through distorted appeals to “nature,” as if maternal mortality is “God’s will.” Religious norms and practices continue to “influence the uptake of MHS (maternal health services) and maternal health outcomes.” Yet nothing in scripture suggests that women are meant to be discriminated against, to be dismissed in hospitals while in painful labor, or to have their autonomy stripped away. I refuse to accept the misinterpretation of Scripture used to excuse suffering when we have the means to prevent it. It is not “God’s will,” or natural at all, for women to be “used up in the process of reproduction, in a matter analogous to that of salmon, which does after spawning,” as Dr. Joseph DeLee bitterly phrases. Religious or not, women deserve proper medical care, respect, and trust.
We must stop allowing hospitals, policymakers, and even religious voices to disguise sexism and racism as “natural.” Women deserve more than this ambiguity, this uncertainty of whether we will get proper care. We deserve to be believed and treated. Every woman, pregnant or not, must dismantle this system. Demand accountability because maternal death is not natural but preventable. And preventing it begins with us refusing to stay silent.
Katerina Lung is a first-year student at Columbia University at Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.