Medical Malpractice & African American Mothers

In examining a lineage of events throughout time, this timeline endeavors to call consideration to the role of literature, history, and culture in informing and creating the climate from which the lives of Black mothers in the United States are consistently, disproportionately endangered by medical malpractice. Chosen for this timeline were literary and historical events that shed light on the creation and evolution of the systemic racism that informs these immoral medical practices: Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), Prince’s The History of Mary Prince (1831), Dr. James Marion Sims’s experiments (1845-1849), Browning’s “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point (1848), Henrietta Lacks’ stolen cells (1951), and the forced sterilization of the Relf sisters (1973). Through analyzation and connection of the events’ contribution to the themes and discourse that inform this practice of racial injustice in medicine today, understanding of how perpetuated, damaging narratives surrounding African American mothers have led to the disbelief of symptoms and pain, victim blaming, creation and sustaining of systemic U.S. racism, and employment of beliefs and practices that reflect a devaluing and disposability of their lives that have come to shape their experiences in prenatal healthcare. In the presentation of this chain of events and their respective implications and contributions in sustaining and evolving forms of injustice and oppression, the importance of historical and cultural context in the evaluation of contemporary medical malpractice performed on African American mothers today is clear.

 

Timeline

Chronological table

Displaying 1 - 10 of 10
Date Event Created by Associated Places
1789

The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano was an abolitionist writer who wrote his memoir: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, which showcases the wickedness he and other Africans had to endure by being stripped from their home and sold into slavery. It was published in London during the year 1789. He was stolen from his village by freelance slavers and was a slave in Africa, only to be shipped to Barbados and North America. Once enslaved he was able to purchase his freedom from an American Quacker merchant, Robert King, and he settled in London where he wrote his story (Anthology). The narrative was meant to evoke emotion from the British audience of that time, by divulging intimate moments from his life, which ended up working according to a newspaper article written in 1789: “And how can we, without blushing, congratulate ourselves on the blest privilege of liberty and independence, when, in defiance of the faith, we profess, we thus wantonly deprive a people, equally independent with ourselves, of blessings we so highly prize” (General Magazine). This demonstrates that Equiano’s narrative had an impact on society and even magazines during that time questioned the unethical practices of African Americans. Equiano’s slave narrative demonstrates his ability to turn from an object to a possessive individual. He had at first faced adversity, only to overcome it and make a name for himself, by fighting back against the harsh systems and policies that tried to separate him from society in the first place.  

In the narrative, Equiano recalls horrific events that he had seen happen: “On my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hand, and laid me across I think the windless, and tied my feet, while the others flogged me severely” (Equiano). He experienced multiple accounts of cruelty and confusion. The mistreatment of Africans had not only been an advantageous power move for the ones in charge, but it also highlights the oppressive society that Africans had no choice but to endure. Because of the policies in place, there was no one to stand up against the system to acknowledge what Americans were doing was unjust and unethical. In an article written by Mallipeddi: “Filiation to Affiliation: Kinship and Sentiment in Equiano’s Interesting Narrative” they state: “After returning to London as a freedman, he generates horizontal ties of affiliation with the expatriate black community to promote the causes of abolition and racial upliftment” (Mallipeddi 24). Although there were not many people to uplift black lives, it is important to recognize the effort that Equiano took upon himself after he had gained his freedom.

Similarly, these circumstances can remind one of the Relf case because the Relf girls were also taken out of their homes without consent. The lines: “I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me” (Equiano). This reminds me of the girls in the operating room confused as to what was going on. In Equiano’s narrative, he is convinced that the handlers are going to kill him, and a similar fear is running through the Relf girl’s minds. Another correlation that can be made is the idea that after a horrendous act had been done to Equiano, he spoke out against the atrocities that were happening. The Relf girls had also spoken out against the wrongs that they endured and found a way to alert what was happening in their community as well. Equiano’s narrative is a reminder that the mistreatment of African Americans goes back to the beginning of history.

The last correlation that can be made is to The Abundant Birth Project. These two events coincide with one another by Equiano demonstrating the horror that black lives faced during slavery. It highlights the beginning of systemic racism by putting black lives in danger, beginning with slave owners lacking empathy for human beings, similar to problems that we still see today in medical malpractice in African Americans. 

 Work Cited:

MALLIPEDDI, RAMESH. “FILIATION TO AFFILIATION: KINSHIP AND SENTIMENT IN EQUIANO’S INTERESTING NARRATIVE.” ELH, vol. 81, no. 3, 2014, pp. 923–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24475611. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.

"The Life of Olandah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa." The General Magazine and Impartial Review, 1789, pp. 315. ProQuest, http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/hi...

Maria Croddy
1822 to 1877

François Marie Prevost

A physician who practiced medicine on slaves, specifically black mothers. He performed his first Caesarean section between 1822-1825. He practiced medicine in Louisiana in the plantation areas. This contributes to the beginning of medical malpractice in black mothers and how it has developed differently over time. 

https://www.anb.org/display/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1200741

Maria Croddy
1831

The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave

The History of Mary Prince is the narrative of an enslaved woman, Mary Prince, who shares the horrors of slavery and exposes the true capacity of enslavers' cruelty through her experiences on her journey to freedom from Bermuda to England. Her narrative was edited and published in 1831 by Thomas Pringle through F. Westley and A. H. Davis publications in London. Though considered to be autobiographical, the extent of Pringle's role in the transcription and publication of Prince's history are highly controversial; his contributions later revised in a 1997 adaptation by Moira Ferguson.

In the original publication, though Pringle writes of Prince's role, "The narrative was taken down from Mary's own lips...written out fully...pruned into its present shape; retaining, as far as was practicable, Mary's exact expressions and peculiar phraseology," (Pringle qtd. Prince) her narrative is repeatedly compressed by footnotes and "sandwiched between white and black male-authored texts, as if a black woman's story is inadequate on its own and needs the authority of a white man...to make it complete" (Baumgartner 9). Pringle's 'supplement' was nearly as long as her narrative, shorter by just eight pages. Despite working to expose the injustices faced by Prince and defending her against critics, Pringle's approach and supplemental assertions provide that Mary is simply a tool to be used for the 'greater good,' abolition; he writes, "But after all Mary's character, important though its exculpation be to her, it is not really the point of chief practical interest in this case (Pringle qtd. Prince 10). Likewise, the implications behind Pringle's inclusion of a defamatory letter from Mary's previous enslaver, Mr. Wood, one that Pringle admits 'would probably never appeared' if not for his use of it, must be interrogated. His attention to Mr. Wood, who slandered Prince heavily and was the source of much difficulty in the narrative's publishing, seems to be of as much importance to him in this publication as Prince herself, "Prince's goals appear lost, or at least eclipsed, in this struggle between Pringle and Wood" (Baumgartner 11).

In addition to the personal liberties taken by Pringle in the relaying of Prince's history, the need for excessive supports to validate her credibility in telling her story and the claims in Wood's included letter of her untrustworthy promiscuity contribute to a climate of distrust and misuse of Black women, one where "it is not surprising that the former slave's body became the battleground for the ensuing controversy" (Baumgartner 11). This feeds directly into mainstream narratives surrounding the character of Black women; where "the pro-slavery lobby is content to portray Prince as an immoral, untrustworthy sexual monster," despite no evidence of validity in the claims as well as character witness testimonies refuting it, such as that included in the novel written by an old colleague of Mr. Wood, Mr. Phillips (Baumgartner 12). Mr. Wood, like many in the pro-slavery lobby, stand to gain from discrediting Prince and others like her--they work to ensure that Black women's testimonies of the abuse suffered at their hands will be invalidated and dismissed.

In analyzation of the contemporary implications presented by the narrative's conception, publication, and reception, the liberties normalized to be taken in the right to Black women's stories and lives; the insinuated necessity of validation or approval from a White man to validate Black women's credibility; the devaluing use of Black women as a 'tool' to serve personal agendas; the normalization of placing Black women's bodies and credibility up for display and debate; and the dehumanizing perception of Black women as expendable and acceptable sacrifices to be made are important to consider. Through the lens of this historical context, the ways these ideas have evolved in the systemic racism that informs medical malpractice on African American mothers today can be identified.

Excerpts: A Closer Look at Prince

Passages of Prince's narrative present that this disbelief in Black women as a credible source, even in the telling of their own life story, extends to disbelief of their ability to feel emotional or physical pain. Prince relays, "We...worked through the heat of the day; the sun flaming upon our heads like fire, and raising salt blisters...Our feet and legs, from standing in the salt water...soon became full of dreadful boils...in some cases to the very bone" (Prince 10). Her diction leaves no room for oversight of the severity of their pain, with graphic descriptions such as 'flaming upon our head like fire...dreadful boils...in some cases to the very bone.' Calling attention to the inhumane treatment she was forced to endure, she forces the audience to recognize they are not machines for production; they are human, they feel, they suffer, and they are in danger. Notably, "the external surroundings are given more agency than her body," reflecting the loss of autonomy she was also forced to endure (Baumgartner 5). This describes the climate from which evolved the widespread medical malpractice performed on African American mothers today; they are disbelieved in their personal testimonies, disbelieved in their capacity for pain, and refused the autonomy provided much more readily to their White counterparts.

In one of the many cases where Prince provides that her brutal experience is far from singular, she describes an instance exemplifying the complete disregard in the suffering and lives of Black mothers and their babies through Hetty's story, an enslaved pregnant woman punished for a cow's escape. Prince recalls, "My master flew into a terrible passion...flogged her as hard as he could lick...till she was all over streaming with blood. He rested, and then beat her again and again...poor Hetty was brought to bed before her time, and was delivered after severe labour of a dead child...her former strength never returned to her...she died" (Prince 7). Her description of Hetty's dire condition, 'streaming with blood,' followed by her enslaver's subsequent rest and continuation emphasize the extreme damage inflicted and the relentless power exerted in these deadly blows. Hetty's story portrays not only the lack of value placed in the lives of Black mothers and babies, but the active violence readily and exhaustively enacted against them; a scene that sets the stage for the evolution of injustice presented in the medical malpractice in the treatment of African American mothers today.

Works Cited

Baumgartner, Barbara. "The Body as Evidence: Resistance, Collaboration, and Appropriation in 'The History of Mary Prince.'" Callaloo, vol. 24, no. 1, 2001, pp. 253-75. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3300499. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. 1831. Proquest, http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/bo....

Riley George
1845 to 1849

Dr. James Marion Sims: 'The Father of Gynaecology'

Dr. James Marion Sims, hailed today as 'the father of gynaecology,' found his big break in developing the cesarean section as a cure to vesico-vaginal fistulas (VVF) through his experimentation on enslaved pregnant women from 1845-1849, operations that were performed without the use of anesthesia. Constituting his prominence in the medical scene, VVF had been an ailment plaguing women for centuries, yet no doctors had yet to "develop a method of surgery which would consistently yield positive results," as "the medical specialty of gynaecology did not exist...the practice of examining the female organs was considered repugnant by doctors who were almost all males" (Ojanuga 1).

Dr. Sims, previously believing VVFs to be incurable, got the inspiration for his research through a woman's pelvic injury sustained in a horseback riding incident; this on-scene treatment, resulting in examination of the woman on her elbows and knees, provided a vaginal vantage point from which Dr. Sims believed he could discover the cure for VVF. He went on to perform his experimental procedures on enslaved women before presenting them to the public; these woman were brought in by their enslavers as they were considered "useless as human chattel since they could neither work in fields nor houses in their condition (Ojanuga 2). Confident in his chances of success, he invites a group of doctors to oversee his first operation on an enslaved woman named Lucy. With no anesthesia and put on display, "Lucy endured excruciating pain while positioned on her hands and knees. She must have felt extreme humiliation as twelve doctors observed the operation. Unfortunately, the operation failed..." (Ojanuga 2). Through the 'fathers' of medicine like Sims, the lack of autonomy, disregard of pain, and implied expendability of the lives of Black women and their babies was not only normalized in its practice of medicine on pregnant Black women; it was built into its very foundation. Though not a price they had to pay themselves, Black lives were a cost that enslavers and doctors were willing to pay for their personal gain, "It is little wonder that enslaved woman are at grave risk of suffering prenatal conditions. Prenatal risk was the price that slave owners, and by extension the doctors...were willing to pay to ensure that black women continued to birth slaves with great frequency" (Ojanuga 4). As medicine has evolved, new methods of malpractice in the treatment of Black mothers have evolved alongside it.

Dr. Sims immoral practices were not only accepted; they were revered, "By the time of Dr J Marion Sims's death in 1833, he had established a world-wide reputation as a great surgeon and gynaecologist. Hospitals are named for him and statues of Dr Sims can be seen in New York and South Carolina" (Ojanuga 3). This recognition did not take long to garner, with Sims's co-founding of a women's hospital shortly after. An article, written by the New York Daily Tribune during the hospital's formation in 1856, reveals dominant mindsets which praise Dr. Sims; fail to acknowledge the cost of Black women's safety and lives that funded his innovation; and demonize women for 'being at fault' for suffering such ailments. The article provides, "we are indebted to Dr. J. M. Sims...who has recently made some important medical discoveries...that these discoveries are of great value, is proved by the recognition awarded..." ("The Woman's Hospital"). Solidifying Sims as a benevolent innovator, the article turns its attentions to the prospective patients of this hospital, "By a thousand violations of natural laws and the most flagrant disregard of the requirements of prudence, the women of this country have brought themselves into a condition of health alike deplorable and disgraceful. What with tight lacing, thin shoes, bare necks, late hours, unventilated rooms, and artifical exitants, the sex in our large cities present, a lamentable array of sick" ("The Woman's Hospital"). Beyond blaming women for their ailments in the advertisement of a Sims's women's hospital, it goes on to charge them with the responsibility of relieving themselves from health issues through abandoning vanity. Despite advertising a health care facility for women and the brilliance and innovation of its doctors (of which Dr. Sims was the head of surgery), the article provides that the cure for women's illness lies in their own hands, "There may yet be in store for society a millenial day when women will prefer health to fashion and nature to meretricious ornament; but until then thousands must die victims to the fashionable follies of the age" ("The Woman's Hospital"). With the promotion and access to innovative medical techniques, built on the suffering and lives of Black women, failing to mention their contribution; failing to allow them treatment at the hospital once the procedure was developed to be dependably effective; and placing blame and criticism on White women, who were inarguably, exceedingly held in higher regard than Black women, the failures of women's healthcare and the danger to Black mothers today is without mystery.

Works Cited

Ojanuga, Durrenda. "The Medical Ethics of the 'Father of Gynaecology', Dr. J. Marion Sims." Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 19, no. 1, 1993, pp. 28-31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27717250. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.

"THE WOMAN'S HOSPITAL." New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866), Feb 25, 1856, pp. 4. ProQuest, http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/hi....

Riley George
circa. 1848

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an abolitionist poet who wrote The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point. The poem was released in 1848 and tells the story of a “runaway slave” recalling her experiences as a slave leading up to her escape. Browning wished to highlight the true horrors enslaved men and women faced in order to educate her readers on the necessity of abolition. 

England had passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1834 outlawing the owning, buying, and selling of humans in every English colony across the globe. I believe the United States famously became independent around 1776 meaning the act did not pass and slavery would remain perfectly legal until the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Of course, slavery wouldn’t truly end until June 19, 1865: the last time the Emancipation Proclamation was enforced in order to free the last remaining slaves. Because slavery remained in practice, English abolitionists turned their attention towards the United States and Central America. Browning herself chose to set the story in an American setting in order to promote abolition across the Atlantic. 

Browning’s choice to write about a black woman was inspired by the specific horrors they faced under slavery. The poem specifically highlights the issue of sexual assault committed by slave owners and their officers. In the poem, the woman recalls when slavers found out she had been close with an enslaved man and chose to murder the man in front of her. The slavers sexually assaulted the woman who would then have a child as a result. In a heart wrenching stanza, the woman describes her decision to smother her child in the dead of night. Browning provided two possible motivations for the mother’s decision within the poem. The mother describes how her child outwardly appears as a white baby. It is implied that the mother chose to smother her baby in part because of his white skin reminding her of the slavers who have imprisoned her. However, one could read the mother’s actions as protection. She knows her baby looks white yet because of his heritage, will be enslaved. The mother is partly motivated by her desire to protect her baby from the horrors he is destined to experience. It’s really hard to read, but it’s important that Browning chose not to stop just short of the experience of enslaved women. Infanticide was prevelent among enslaved women.

Much like the runaway slave, Henrietta Lacks’ autonomy was stripped from her by white men in power. Her consent was ignored for the benefit of a white man. Of course, the slave owners raped the runaway slave and left her to her own devices, while Henrietta was dying of cancer, the doctors were more concerned with the fame their research would grant them to worry about her treatment. Both women had their reproductive health compromised for the benefit of the white men in power. Nobody would remember Henrietta or her experience, just like the millions of enslaved women who never received justice for their assault. 

Jackson Lemaster
1857

The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

Responding to Mary Seacole’s Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, J. Blackwood writes “if the good lady had trusted to her own powers, and had served up her honest English au naturel, she would have made a far better dish of it” (The Critic, 1857). This reflection on Seacole’s prose calls attention to her dismissal of certain elements of her culture. Seacole nearly totally avoids Creole dialect in Wonderful Adventures, anglicizing her prose to better appeal to white audiences so that her ideas would be more palatable and so she could make more money off her book. She derides other aspects of her Creole heritage throughout the story as well, stating early on that “many people have also traced to my Scotch blood that energy and activity which are not always found in the Creole race.” Her devaluation of her culture is indicative of how black lives have been devalued, forcing black and indigenous people to assimilate to whiteness for the sake of their financial stability or survival. Still, Seacole is not entirely dismissive of Creole culture, writing of her studies of Creole medicinal practices and discussing the space that Creole people allow for grief as an important part of processing it healthily. While “several doctors had expressed most unfavourable opinions of his health,” Seacole states that she sustained her husband’s life with “kind nursing and attention,” emphasizing the importance of humanizing care and bedside manner practices in opposition to the cold clinical approach of western medicine. The importance of comfort in healthcare was further impressed upon Seacole in Navy Bay, where she “saw men dying from sheer exhaustion” after she was unable to provide the “warmth, nourishment, and fresh air” necessary to their healing. This focus on comfort lays the foundation for the care she provides during the Crimean war when she sets up her own facility after being rejected by Florence Nightingale. Sometimes her method of care was more likened to motherhood than medicine; Blackwood writes, “a good motherly creature she evidently must be, full of the milk of human kindness” in reference to the patients who called her mother. Seacole did not shy away from the label, describing her patients as “a large family of children ill with fever,” showing the depth of care with which she approached each patient. However, the conflation of her practice with motherhood alongside her focus on subjective patient experiences instead of the quantifying metrics of western medicine has been weaponized against Seacole by racists, who have suggested that her style of care is illegitimate. While Seacole finds ways to continue her nursing in spite of this racism, the impacts of the racism she experienced are more apparent in her writing. Seacole not only anglicizes her prose for the sake of the audience, but she also anglicizes aspects of herself, by leaning into her Scottish heritage while criticizing her Creole heritage and by establishing the British Hotel as a beacon of English comfort and care in the Crimea. Though Blackwood’s initial impression was that the work might have been more interesting had Seacole maintained her “honest English,” her work has managed to stay relevant to this day, still contributing to discussions of ethics of care and racism in the medical system and highlighting the way black voices and lives have been devalued through colonial standards of language and thought.

 

Sources:

  1. Blackwood, The Critic; LondonVol. 16, Iss. 391, (Jul 15, 1857): 321-322

Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, 1857

Elliott Samons
1932 to 1972

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was conducted by the US government, beginning in 1932 in Tuskegee, a rural town in Alabama where nearly 600 African American men had their syphilis diagnosis hidden from them. By allowing the disease to run its course, those conducting the experiment hoped to observe the effects of syphilis on the human body. In 1947, when it was discovered that penicillin was an effective cure for syphilis, the men were still not informed and were not offered treatment. After the experiment was ended and condemned, the men subjected to it each received an out of court settlement of $37,500, and the families of deceased victims of the experiment were given $15,000. At least 128 of the men who were experimented on died directly from syphilis or from complications related to syphilis. The families of some of the men involved also unknowingly contracted syphilis, causing issues with fertility in women, who have an increased chance of miscarriage if their syphilis is not treated. The experiment was ended in 1972 after several articles were published exposing the malpractice, causing an ad hoc panel to look into the case, which they deemed “ethically unjustified,” reporting that the “results were disproportionately meager compared with known risks to human subjects involved” (https://biotech.law.lsu.edu). While directly impacting the physical health of the people of Tuskegee, the experiment has had more long term, widespread effects. A study by Marcella Alsan and Marianne Wanamaker explores the impact the experiment had on the relationship between black culture and the healthcare industry, finding that “men who were more similar to Tuskegee’s uneducated, poor, medically underserved population were more likely to suffer diminished outcomes; and migrants from Alabama in the wake of Tuskegee were very likely to carry with them these diminished outcomes” (Newkirk, 2016). The study also found the experiment to be “responsible for over a third of the life expectancy gap between older black men and white men in 1980.”  Those who lived in close proximity to Tuskegee and those who identified with the victims of the experiment were more likely to have negative experiences in healthcare settings and were less likely to trust doctors or the medical system as a whole. This decrease in trust was reinforced by a racial disparities embedded into every level of the medical system, which limited access to care and quality of care to black people, especially black women, underscored by historic dehumanization of black people and the belief that they didn’t feel pain in the same way that white people did. While material impacts like access and quality of healthcare clearly highlight racial disparities, this study shows how experiences of racism embed themselves historically. The distrust sewn by the experiment combined with the impacts on sexual and reproductive health have played a role in shaping how black patients interact with doctors, further limiting their access to quality care.

 

sources:

https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/history/reports/tuskegee/complete%20rep...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/tuskegee-study-medi...

Elliott Samons
29 Jan 1951 to 14 Oct 1951

Henrietta Lacks' Stolen Cells

The case of Henrietta Lacks serves as a living reminder of both hypocrisy and abuse created by systemic racism. Henrietta Lacks was black mother living in Jim Crow era Baltimore and dealt with racial segregation. On January 29, 1951, Lacks went into John Hopkins hospital because of a “knot in her womb” that persisted after giving birth to her son. The hospital itself was the only one in her area that would treat black patients and even then would only treat them in the “colored” ward. John Hopkins Hospital has become notorious for unethical research methods and cases of malpractice, Lacks of course being one of the most notable cases. 

During the checkup, Lacks’ doctors observed an abnormal tumor in her cervix and diagnosed her with cervical cancer which was technically incorrect as Lacks’ was retroactively re-diagnosed with adenocarcinoma. It was a common mistake made in medical circles at the time and treatment wouldn’t have differed. Their failure to correctly diagnose, while a common issue, speaks to the incompetence many of Lacks’ doctors displayed. Without her informed consent, Lacks’ doctors extracted some cells for research without informing her of their decision. Lacks’ doctors openly denied her the right to oppose or support their research on her body. What is truly shocking is that this kind of behavior was a common practice at the time. While the doctors at John Hopkins conducted research and cemented their spot in medical research history, Lacks spent the following eight months in despair before she finally died on October 14, 1951. 

The extracted cells were found to grow at an exponential rate, often doubling within 24 hours. This had never been seen before and was believed to be full of promising cancer research, the line of cells was christened “HeLa” after the woman they were stolen from. John Hopkins hospital allegedly did not profit or gain any financial compensation for the cells and reportedly gave them to multiple labs around the country for free. One lab in Russia was shut down when the cells grew and contaminated a lot of research. Although there was no reported revenue, “HeLa” has appeared in numerous medical patents and genetically modified versions of the cell line are worth $10,000 (Truog et al. 2012). HeLa cells have also been used to study the long term effects of space travel on the human body with scientists finding that cells divide faster in zero gravity.

Lack’s family received no compensation of any form despite the progress being made by Henrietta’s cells. They weren’t even aware any cells had been extracted for decades after the initial procedure. In the years since, the story of Henrietta Lacks has been subject to a debate on ethics and medical malpractice. While major strides in cancer research have been made thanks to the study of HeLa cells, they were obtained unethically and without the knowledge of Lacks. Some believe that the ends justify the means but what if it were them? What if a couple of white doctors removed YOUR cells without your knowledge and became successful off of YOUR cells while your name was forgotten by history for decades? All the while you and your family receive NO form of compensation.Henrietta Lacks would one day receive justice and her surviving family would become aware of her unwilling contribution. 

Eternal life: A mother, lost to her family years ago, unwittingly left a legacy that changed science.  (2010, Feb 07). New York Times (1923-) Retrieved from http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/eternal-life/docview/1458372460/se-2 

 

Truog, R. D., Kesselheim, A. S., & Joffe, S. (2012). Paying Patients for Their Tissue: The  Legacy of Henrietta Lacks. Science, 337(6090), 37–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41585193

Jackson Lemaster
1 Summer 1973

Sterilization Act: The Relf Sisters

The forced sterilization of the Relf girls, Mary Alice, and Minnie Lee, serves as an example of medical abuse and malpractice in black women. On July 1, 1973, the two girls were forced out of their home by nurses and coerced into signing documents that changed their lives forever. Sterilization laws were implemented to “keep welfare low, reduce poverty, and improve the gene pool by preventing the ‘mentally deficit’ from reproducing” (Villarosa). Unfortunately, the Relf girls happened to fit all three criteria according to the clinic, which was the leading factor in their rights to bear children being stripped away from them. The Relf vs. Weinberger case helped uncover more than 100,000 minority (mostly black, Latina, and Indigenous women) sterilizations throughout the decades.

The two teenage girls at the time were receiving birth control shots from a clinic named ‘Montgomery Family Planning Clinic’ The nurses had come to the house claiming they wanted to give the girls more shots. Still, instead, they were, “carted into an operating room, where surgeons irrevocably robbed them of their right to bear children” (Davis 1). Coming from an impoverished background, The Relf’s mother had unknowingly consented to sign documentation, because of their inability to read and write, that would later be used to prove that they did agree to the procedure. Racism and medical ethics are being questioned due to mistreatment and forced complacency in a supposed safe environment.

The argument that the sterilization had nothing to do with the girl’s race is that the nurses who brought them into the clinic were also assumingly black: “Clinic employees noted, however, that the nurses who took the girls from their home were also black” ( Ayres 10).  The reason for their sterilization was not because of their race, but rather that they might have children with venereal disease. On the contrary, statistics demonstrate that approximately 65% of women being sterilized in North Carolina during this time were black and the other 35% were white (Davis). Forced sterilizations had a racist undertone, as seen in the case of Fannie Lou Hammer who had her hysterectomy removed unknowingly in 1961 during an operation to remove a tumor. The federal government had allowed the mistreatment of minority groups to go on for far too long.

The biological parents of the Relf girls were both unable to provide proper care and finances for the girls involved. The father had a disability, and the mother was illiterate. That being the case, they were assigned to a social worker who had been responsible for providing the girls with care. One of the girls, Mary Alice, was declared “mentally incompetent”, by a government-funded – diagnostic facility, which inherently “flagged them”. The lawsuit was implemented by the family to prevent government officials from taking away the right to motherhood from children. The case uncovered similar practices that were covered up and financed by the U.S. government: “The Relf case led to changes in laws, regulations, and guidelines regarding forced or coerced sterilizations, the question of compensation for the victims remained” (Villarosa). The Relf family had received no compensation for the damages bestowed upon the girls. It was not until the 21st century that states finally issued money to the survivors of forced or coerced sterilization. The Relf case is an example of the history of medical malpractice of black women and the unethical practices that were displayed throughout history. 

Work Cited: 

Davis, Angela. “The Historical Context: Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights.” Race, Poverty & the Environment, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993, pp. 21–23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41554117. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.

B.DRUMMOND AYRES JR.Special to The New York. "Racism, Ethics and Rights at Issue in Sterilization Case: Money Suspended Nazi Usage Cited Judge Called Biased." New York Times (1923-), Jul 02, 1973, pp. 10. ProQuest, http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/hi....

Villarosa, Linda. “The Long Shadow of Eugenics in America.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 June 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/magazine/eugenics-movement-america.html.

 

Maria Croddy
2021

The Abundant Birth Project

The Abundant Birth Project, implemented in 2021, is designed to counter the obstetric racism that researchers say “leads a disproportionate number of African American People to die from childbirth, the project has provided 150 pregnant Black and Pacific Islander San Franciscans a $1,000 monthly stipend” (Cohen 2023). This project, though based in San Francisco, addresses a nationwide issue; U.S. systemic racism has put the lives of pregnant Black women in danger through the prevalence of prenatal medical malpractice in its healthcare system. Not only performed through methods of treatment, this malpractice also presents through lack of treatment provided in the disbelief or disregard of Black women’s pain, “slow or missed diagnoses are also a result of bias, structural racism in medicine and inattentive care that leads to patients, particularly Black women, not being heard” (Stafford 2023). The staggering statistics speak to the importance of efforts like the Abundant Birth Project, “Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States…almost three times the rate for white women” (Stafford 2023). 

However, the project is in danger, “Conservative groups have sued to shut down the Abundant Birth Project…a lawsuit alleging that the program, the first of its kind in the nation, illegally discriminates by giving the stipend only to people of a specific race” (Cohen 2023). Despite claims of discrimination in the efforts to improve maternal outcomes for African American women, it fails to rebuke the centuries of discriminatory acts that have necessitated such efforts, “Discrimination and bias in hospital settings have been disastrous…The AP conducted dozens of interviews with doctors, medical professionals, advocates, and historians and researchers who detailed how a history of racism that begin during the foundational years of America led to disparities seen today” (Stafford 2023).

One of the conservative nonprofits suing the Abundant Birth Project claims its “violation of the equal protection clause” of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment by granting money exclusively to Black women, but again fails to acknowledge imperative historical context: “The 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to give rights to formerly enslaved Black people” (Cohen 2023).

The executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, Dan Morenoff, claims the Abundant Birth Project is “unconstitutional. They can’t legally do it, and we are optimistic that the courts will not allow them to continue to do it” (Cohen 2023). Seemingly unfamiliar with the prevalence in which the U.S. government has allowed the rights of Black women to be impeded upon, there is a failure to consider injustices of healthcare that have created the climate from which they present themselves today, as, “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women” (Stafford 2023).

In providing how literary and historical contributions have shaped the ways these themes and discourses present themselves today in the necessitated implementation of and the controversy of The Abundant Birth Project, the contribution of these events in their perpetuation of the discrediting of Black women’s voices; the imposition of blame in their experience of discriminatory acts; the shaping and sustaining of systemic racism; and the implied lack of value and practiced disposability of Black mothers’ lives, the inability of this issue to be fully and effectively understood or addressed without attention to the historical and cultural contexts that shaped it become clear.

Work Cited: 

Cohen Ronnie. KFF Health News. “Backlash to Affirmative Action Hits Pioneering Maternal Health Program for Black Women.” The 19th, 23 Jan. 2024, 19thnews.org/2023/11/affirmative-action-backlash-maternal-health-program-black-women/. Accessed 01 May 2024.

Stafford, Kat. Press Associated “Why Do so Many Black Women Die in Pregnancy? One Reason: Doctors Don’t Take Them Seriously.” AP NEWS, 14 July 2021, projects.apnews.com/features/2023/from-birth-to-death/black-women-maternal-mortality-rate.html. Accessed 02 May 2024.

 
Elliott Samons