The Black Maternal Health Momnibus is composed of nine individual bills sponsored by Black Maternal Health Caucus Members. The legislation will:
- Make critical investments in social determinants of health that influence maternal health outcomes, like housing, transportation, and nutrition.
- Provide funding to community-based organizations that are working to improve maternal health outcomes for Black women.
- Comprehensively study the unique maternal health risks facing women veterans and invest in VA maternity care coordination.
- Grow and diversify the perinatal workforce to ensure that every mom in America receives maternity care and support from people she can trust.
- Improve data collection processes and quality measures to better understand the causes of the maternal health crisis in the United States and inform solutions to address it.
- Invest in maternal mental health care and substance use disorder treatments.
- Improve maternal health care and support for incarcerated women.
- Invest in digital tools like telehealth to improve maternal health outcomes in underserved areas.
- Promote innovative payment models to incentivize high-quality maternity care and continuity of health insurance coverage from pregnancy through labor and delivery and up to 1 year postpartum.
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Black Mamas Matter Alliance is a Black women-led cross-sectoral alliance. We center Black mamas to advocate, drive research, build power, and shift culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice.
The Black Mamas Matter Alliance was sparked by a partnership project between the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective (SisterSong) that began in 2013. The two organizations collaborated on story collection on the obstacles that Southern Black women face in accessing maternal health care, leading to poor maternal health outcomes and persistent racial disparities. These findings were included in a joint report – “Reproductive Injustice: Gender and Racial Discrimination in U.S. Health Care” – submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The Black Mamas Matter Alliance helps to:
- Increase the visibility of Black women leaders;
- Cultivate a deep bench of Black women leaders recognized for their expertise, contribution, and work; and
- Support more effective collaboration of stakeholders working to advance Black maternal health.
BMMA was created out of a need to form an entity that can hold space and serve as a platform for Black women-led initiatives that are working to address the issues that impact maternal health disparities and inequities using the human rights, reproductive justice, and birth justice frameworks across all sectors.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective was formed in 1997 by 16 organizations of women of color from four mini-communities (Native American, African American, Latina, and Asian American) who recognized that we have the right and responsibility to represent ourselves and our communities, and the equally compelling need to advance the perspectives and needs of women of color.
SisterSong is the largest national multi-ethnic Reproductive Justice collective. Our membership includes and represents Indigenous, African American, Arab and Middle Eastern, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Latina women and LGBTQ people. Membership also includes allies who support women’s human right to lead fully self-determined lives. We are dedicated to growing and supporting the RJ movement, and to uplifting the voices and building the capacity of our movement sisters to win access to abortion and all other reproductive rights.
SISTERSONG IS A:
- Thought Leader publishing the latest in RJ analysis, uplifting little-known RJ issues, and connecting RJ with other movements
- Movement Voice called on by the United Nations, White House, legislators, media, and leaders of large mainstream organizations to be the voice of RJ and women of color in the US
- Ambassador bringing RJ into the mainstream, and striving to make it as well-known as civil rights or women’s rights
- Trainer drawing thousands into the movement, building the skills of mid-career activists, and training people in groups focused on other issues to integrate the RJ framework into their work
- Convener of the largest conferences of women of color working on RJ
- Facilitator of key collaborations of RJ groups coming together to raise our collective power in areas of great movement need
- Organizer mobilizing a large base of women of color and allies in rapid-response online and in-person action to quash threats to and grasp opportunities for the rights of marginalized women
