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Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

Document Type

Student Comment

Abstract

With roughly 700 women dying each year as a result of pregnancy and/or delivery complications, the United States has the highest rate of maternal deaths in the developed world. As each year passes, the maternal death rate continues to increase, despite the fact that sixty percent of these deaths are preventable. Factors such as quality care, receiving accurate and timely medical diagnoses, and recognizing urgent maternal warning signs all contribute to the preventability of deaths and why women, particularly women of color, so often fall victim to this tragic phenomenon. As an effort to address maternal death in the United States, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act (“PMDA”), a federal law designed to improve data reporting and investigation of maternal death within individual states, was enacted in 2018. The PMDA’s goal is to support state maternal mortality review committees (“MMRCs”) in their efforts to improve health care quality and health care outcomes for mothers. The PMDA, for five years, annually allocates twelve million dollars to interested states to either create new MMRCs or to support already existing MMRCs. Through a critical pragmatist feminist lens, this Article argues that the PMDA has a crippling reliance on arbitrary data collection and fails to require or enforce any solution that would be beneficial to women before, during, and after pregnancy. The PMDA simply funds the collection of data, and by failing to enforce systematic and institutional solutions, prevents women from getting the care and attention they truly need. As a result, the PMDA’s effectiveness is disappointingly limited, despite its aim to provide a comprehensive approach to combating the issue of maternal death in the United States. Looking forward, this Article suggests that the PMDA be revised to reflect the women-centered and social action principles of pragmatist feminism.

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