Serena Williams‘ near-death experience following the birth of her first daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, in 2017 has resurfaced amid outrage over a tweet blaming Black mothers for their own demise during childbirth.
Research has proven that the mortality rate of maternal Black women is twice as high as that of white women. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that for every 100,000 live births, there were 70 deaths of Black mothers.
On Sept. 18, Joel Berry, managing editor of Christian news satire site The Babylon Bee, spurred an outcry from users with a since-deleted post that read: “My wife is a labor and delivery nurse and I can tell you with certainty that their mortality rate is higher because they refuse to get prenatal care, they take drugs at a higher rate, they refuse to eat the right diet, and they overall take worse care of themselves.”
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