Rights and Realities in U.S. Maternity Care

Author: Hermine Hayes-Klein, JD

The healthcare that women receive during pregnancy and childbirth implicates reproductive choice, bioethics, human rights, and feminism. The elimination of preventable maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity requires not only that women can access skilled healthcare and emergency support for pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, but that the care women receive is culturally acceptable to them, and respects their dignity and autonomy. Women can experience labor and childbirth as a time of extreme vulnerability as well as extraordinary power. The way that they are treated during childbirth can amplify their vulnerability or their strength, and leave them feeling traumatized or empowered. In the last few years,...