{"id":244997,"date":"2021-05-11T13:27:46","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T18:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=244997"},"modified":"2021-05-11T13:27:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T18:27:02","slug":"cori-bush-preborn-lives-black-children-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/cori-bush-preborn-lives-black-children-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Cori Bush fought for her preborn babies’ lives. All Black babies deserve that chance."},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a registered nurse, overcame serious hardship to get to where she is today. A single mother of two, Bush overcame homelessness<\/a> to become both the first woman and the first Black woman to hold the seat for her district. Yet she almost lost both of her children during her pregnancies, due to discriminatory, racist treatment she received from those whom she trusted to care for her and her babies.<\/p>\n

Bush testified before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, during which she used the term “birthing people” to refer to mothers, which drew a significant amount of criticism. But Bush’s comments examining the maternal mortality and morbidity crisis among Black women did not garner as much attention. Black women are two and a half times more likely<\/a> to die during pregnancy or childbirth than white women. What’s worse, these deaths are often preventable, according to the Centers for Disease Control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In her testimony, Bush gave a harrowing example of how easily these deaths \u2014 either of women or of their preborn children \u2014 can\u00a0happen. Bush’s son Zion was born extremely premature at just 23 weeks gestation.<\/p>\n

“When I was early in my pregnancy with him, I didn’t think that there could even be a possibility that there could be a complication,” she said. But Bush was soon diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum \u2014\u00a0nausea and vomiting so severe that women can face hospitalization due to dehydration and weight loss during the pregnancy. Bush said she was constantly vomiting for the first four months of her pregnancy.<\/p>\n