Sacred Black Motherhood: A Womanist Lens on The Role of the Prophetic Black Church to Construct an Alternative System of Care that Produces Positive Maternal Health Outcomes for Black Women

Pregnancy and motherhood are sacred. For Black women, the experience of pregnancy and motherhood is far too often dismissed and disregarded as a result of systemic and systematic racism. As a consequence, there is a Black maternal health crisis in the United States. What is the role of the church in addressing the Black maternal health crisis? Social structures and institutions devalue and dehumanize Black women’s bodies, including the Black Church. The Black maternal health crisis in the United States has a significant impact on birthing women and their families. When it comes to reproductive rights, Black birthing women’s humanity is often diminished. The current political climate and laws place all women, especially Black women, at significant risk of maternal mortality. A hetero-patriarchal society has been and continues to be a breeding ground for stripping body autonomy away from women. The Dobbs Decision of 2022 essentially gave significant power to the states to determine the reproductive rights of women: “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the decisions that originally asserted the fundamental right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus. Dobbs v. Jackson states that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; and, the authority to regulate abortion is “returned to the people and their elected representatives.” As of December 13, 2024,13 states are enforcing total bans, 28 states are enforcing abortion bans based on gestational duration, 7 states currently ban abortion at or before 18 weeks gestation, and 21 states ban abortion at some point after 18 weeks. “The inequitable harms of abortion bans were highlighted this year by reporting on the preventable deaths of several women denied care due to abortion bans in Georgia and Texas. Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two Black women in Georgia, died in 2022 because they were denied abortion care or feared seeking care under the state’s abortion ban. Three women in Texas—Porsha Ngumezi, a Black woman, Josseli Barnica, an immigrant from Honduras, and Neveah Crain, a teenager— died after they were denied miscarriage care under the state’s abortion ban.”