While traveling with her husband on his work trip, Mercedes Wells went into labor and headed to Franciscan Health Crown Point in Indiana, only to be turned away because staff said she wasn’t dilated enough.
Eight minutes later, Leon Wells delivered their daughter Alena in their truck on the side of the highway.
The video of Mercedes crying as she was wheeled out of the hospital in active labor went viral, just as another did of Kiara Jones in a Dallas-area emergency room, screaming for help while a white nurse ignored her to complete paperwork. Their stories sparked outrage and urgent calls for accountability.
But they are not exceptions. They are highly visible examples of a health care system that too often fails to treat Black women with dignity, urgency, or respect and allows disparities among them to persist.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show in 2023, Black women died at almost three and a half times the rate of white women from pregnancy-related issues and have the highest maternal mortality rate—nearly 50 deaths per 100,000 live births— compared with 19 among white women and 16.9 among Hispanic women.
Against this backdrop of inequity, a recent state-by-state scan of Momnibus legislation by the National Partnership for Women and Families (NPFW) shows Indiana introduced a Momnibus bill in 2025 and is one of 17 states that has passed or introduced such legislation, which targets the U.S. maternal mortality and morbidity crisis.
“While a lot of the states have the goal of reducing maternal health disparities and know the disproportionate impact on Black birthing people in particular,” said Amani Echols, lead author of the analysis and Senior Manager of Maternal and Infant Health at NPFW.
“However, the analysis criteria revealed nine of the 17 states went above and beyond to center equity and elevate the voices of Black birth workers and Black state advocates, and they championed addressing equity through the different stages of their policy development process,” Echols said.
For example, the executive director of Birth in Color, a Virginia-based group that advocated on behalf of cultural inclusivity in maternal health and reproductive justice, worked with state legislators to assemble the Momnibus package. And the Birth Detroit team worked with state legislators to advance Michigan’s Momnibus legislation.
Despite pockets of progress, systemic strongholds that allow medical bias and gaslighting remain intact.
Dr. Joy Cooper, a California-based ob-gyn and co-founder of Culture Care, said we must be honest about why incidents like those in Indiana and Texas keep occurring.
“It’s racism. This is why we double down on using doulas so that Black women can have dignity in birth. We’re not offering dignity to Black women who come to the hospital, whether they’re pregnant or post-partum or experiencing pregnancy complications. We shirk off their concerns, like it’s no big deal.”
Franciscan Health President and CEO Raymond Grady said all labor and delivery staff will now take mandatory cultural competency training.
Cultural competency is not the right measure, Dr. Cooper said.
“Competency is one thing, but innate empathy is another, unprovoked empathy because of shared experience. Many of the Momnibus bills require cultural competency training, but what we really need is cultural concordance,“ Cooper said.
WAYS YOU CAN HELP END THE BLACK MATERNAL HEALTH CRISIS
1. Advocate for yourself and your loved ones.
Ask questions, take notes, request second opinions, and take a support person to appointments. Self-advocacy is not a cure for systemic racism, but it helps ensure your voice is heard.
2. Choose culturally-concordant care when possible—and support networks that make it accessible.
Seek out providers, doulas, and birthing teams who offer culturally-affirming care. Share these resources with others and support doula training programs that diversify the perinatal workforce.
3. Support maternal health and reproductive justice organizations led by people of color.
Volunteer, donate, or amplify the work of local and national groups that provide birthing support, policy advocacy, legal aid, and community education.
4. Use your voice to influence policy.
Call, email, or meet with your representatives to support legislation such as the newly introduced WELLS Act and other Momnibus provisions. Public pressure helps keep maternal health on lawmakers’ agendas.
5. Share your story.
Sharing your experience —from birthing experiences to interactions with the healthcare system—can help humanize the crisis, empower others, and hold healthcare institutions accountable.
MORE FROM URWELL
- Congress dangles health care for millions — again
- Digital health tools not reaching all who need them
- Covid-19 is evolving, but vaccine policy is eroding
- Climate change is bad for everyone. It’s worse in prisons.
- FDA milk testing program in limbo after staff cuts
- What Luigi Mangione’s case (still) shows about health care in America
