Maternal mortality rates in the United States continue to be disproportionately higher than those in other high-income countries, and Black women face a maternal mortality rate nearly three times that of White women. We examine public discourse of maternal mortality through a thematic analysis of 497 online news articles across six major media outlets from 2009 to 2023 and find the following: (1) framings of racial disparities in maternal mortality from the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico often centered the “spectacular character” of Black maternal suffering, while Ebony, ESSENCE, and Mother Jones centered more nuanced discussions of maternal mortality as a social problem; (2) Jennifer Nash’s analysis of the political and historical construction of “Black maternal politics” was evident in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico; and (3) Ebony, ESSENCE, and Mother Jones articles presented maternal mortality through a lens of reproductive justice (addressing both community-level action and structural transformation), while New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico articles used the language of individual rights and policy reforms.
Danielowski et al. (Wed,) studied this question.