Madison, WI
June 6th, 2020
Today approximately 1000 gathered to march for maternal justice. The gathering at the Wisconsin State Capital steps was to call attention to health disparities among African-American mothers and make a call to defend the police; one set of riot gear is the monetary equivalent to 50 sets of PPE for health care workers.
The rally started at the Capital building and marched down West Washington Ave to Meriter and St. Mary's hospitals.
This from the event description:
In Dane county black newborns have a 9.3 mortality rate while white babies have a 3.7 rate. Black mothers and pregnant people have a 5 times higher chance of dying in labor. Implicit Bias, racism and obstetric violence goes unchecked within the healthcare system and we can not forget about this in our fight for equity. We are calling for attention to be made to the lack of informed consent in hospitals.
We are calling for accountability and action being taken when pregnant patients express the feeling of being neglected or ignored. We are asking and demanding equitable pay for our black and brown birth workers.
From birth, black babies fight for their chance to live. To fight this racism, it must first be acknowledged, recognized and explicitly named.
These are continuously challenging times we are living through. And splitting time between commitments can be difficult. Having covered many protests over the past nine years, they all have tugged at my emotions and heartstrings in different ways; today was no different. My kiddo, who is 8 1/2, was at home alone while I was covering this event. It was a trial to see how she would do being home alone for an hour or so. With the nature of this rally, my daughter was constantly on my mind. At Bassett and West Washington I took my leave of the marchers to get back home to my kiddo.