Khiara M. Bridges — Expecting Inequity: The Maternal Health Crisis and Race
UC Berkeley law professor Khiara M. Bridges reveals how racism in maternal healthcare persists across income levels, drawing on two years observing an affluent San Francisco OB clinic.
Why we picked this
By studying an affluent clinic, Bridges closes the escape hatch of class — her research makes it harder to attribute maternal mortality disparities to poverty, and in doing so forces a more honest account of what's actually causing them.
Black individuals are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts — a disparity that has been documented, deplored, and inadequately addressed for years. The usual explanation involves poverty: Black pregnant people face worse outcomes because they are more likely to lack insurance, access, and resources. Khiara M. Bridges, a Professor of Law at UC Berkeley who specializes in reproductive rights, race, and class, spent two years testing that explanation at an affluent San Francisco obstetrics clinic serving wealthy patients. What she found complicated the story considerably.
Expecting Inequity documents how racism in maternal healthcare is not reserved for the poor. Even at a clinic where patients have every socioeconomic advantage, the racially differential treatment that drives disparate outcomes persists — in how concerns are heard, how risk is assessed, and how decisions are made. The research draws on extensive observation and interview evidence, and it builds toward a systemic argument about what healthcare institutions would actually need to change to address disparities that are not primarily about resources.
Bridges’s scholarship appears in the Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia law reviews, and she has written extensively on racialization in pregnancy and the politics of privacy rights. The Town Hall Seattle evening is an opportunity to hear the argument in conversation form, approximately 75 minutes, with a sliding-scale ticket price.