‘They recognized the baby but minimized the woman’

LOUISVILLE — Black Maternal Health Week, celebrated across the nation this week, was highlighted during Wednesday’s Chapel Service through powerful and personal preaching by Jacklyn Walker, administrative project manager for Partners Beyond the PC(USA) in Presbyterian Life & Witness.

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The 10-year anniversary of Black Maternal Health Week carries the theme “Rooted in Justice and Joy.”

“This milestone theme reflects the strength and resilience of Black-led perinatal, maternal and reproductive health organizations that have cultivated change and healing across communities,” according to the Black Maternal Health Week website. “It acknowledges the enduring legacies of systemic oppression, reproductive injustice and health inequities that continue to impact Black mamas and birth people while calling for a liberated future rooted in restoration, justice and joy.”

Walker titled her message “When Her Cry is Dismissed” and based it on 1 Samuel 4:19-20: “Now [Eli’s] daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth. When she heard the news that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her labor pains overwhelmed her. As she was about to die, the women attending her said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.’ But she did not answer or give heed.”

“This text describes the open wound that is Black maternal health,” Walker said. “A woman is literally dying and the response she receives does not match the seriousness of her condition.”

The woman is identified only as the wife of Phinehas — “not by her own name, not by her own story, not by her own voice. She is seen, but not honored, and this matters,” Walker said. “Her suffering is personal but her personhood is blurred.”

The women attending her during childbirth tell her, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.”

“I need us to sit with that for a moment, because dismissal sometimes does not begin with cruelty,” Walker said. “Sometimes it begins with a failure to fully see the person in front of you.”

The text tells us she goes into labor after hearing devastating news. Her husband and her father-in-law have died, and the ark of God has been captured.

“Let’s name this pain very clearly,” Walker said. She’s lost her husband, her “earthly caregiver,” “a covering in the social order of her day.” She’s lost her father-in-law, “a spiritual leader, a figure of guidance and authority.” And she’s lost “her connection to God,” the ark of God, “the physical symbol of God’s presence among the people.”

“This is not ordinary labor. This is not simple discomfort,” Walker said. “She is carrying personal loss, familial loss, communal loss, spiritual devastation — all while birthing a child.” She is “delivering life while death closes in on her,” and she’s told not to worry because she’s given birth to a son.

“Can you hear how jarring that is? They’re not asking, ‘How bad is her bleeding? Can she breathe? Is she in distress? Does she need help?’” Walker said. “They saw the outcome, but not her agony. They recognized the baby but minimized the woman.”

But “before we cast judgment” on those attending this woman during childbirth, “we need to be honest enough to admit this pattern is still an issue,” Walker said. “When her cry is dismissed, what often happens is people respond to what they can measure, what they can celebrate, what they can cling to, what they can name publicly. They don’t respond with the same urgency to the suffering.”

“This is what makes the text so convicting,” Walker said. “It shows us something very dangerous — that we can be near suffering and still not respond to it. We can be present and yet dismissive. We can say something soothing and still be negligent. We can offer words without care.”

What this woman needed “was for her condition to be taken seriously, because comfort without care is not compassion.” It is “the language of concern without the work of intervention.”

This is “exactly why Black Maternal Health Week matters, because the pattern of this text is not buried in biblical history,” Walker noted. “It is painfully current.”

Black women “are too often left to endure pain, explain pain, prove pain and survive pain that should have prompted immediate action,” she said. “Their strength is visible but not prioritized. Black women are expected to be stronger rather than cared for.”

“For some of us, medical mistrust did not come from research. It came from lived trauma,” Walker said. “It came from what our mothers survived and what our grandmothers warned us about.”

Walker told the story of her own mother, who’d gone to a hospital for a routine post-partum procedure and then returned to the hospital less than 24 hours later “because something was wrong.” Staff thought she was having a reaction to anesthesia and left her unattended in the emergency room for a number of hours.

“By the time she was finally taken seriously, she needed five pints of blood,” Walker said. Emergency surgery revealed a blood vessel had been clipped during surgery the day before.

“Let’s not continue to say ‘Just pray about it’ when what is needed is for someone to listen, someone to help escalate the issue, someone to advocate on her behalf, someone to accompany her in her pain, to intervene and to act,” she said. “Let’s not confuse endurance with justice or survival with safety or being used to pain with being cared for.”

Walker said the scriptural text asks of us, “who are we going to be when we hear cries like hers? Will we offer shallow reassurance? Will we spiritualize what should be urgently addressed? Will we admire strength instead of providing care?”

“Or will we finally respond in the way of Christ?” she wondered. “Some of the harm done to Black women is not done from hostility, but from hesitation.”

Included in our charge for today, Walker said, is this: “Do not be louder about the baby than you are about the mother.”

The women attending this birth “acknowledged the child but dismissed [the mother’s] cry,” she said. “If we aren’t careful, we will repeat the same sin but with cleaner language. We will celebrate outcomes but ignore suffering. We will applaud resilience and overlook neglect. We will thank God for the Bible while refusing to confront what makes the Bible so hard.”

“If you hear nothing else today, please hear. ‘Do not dismiss her cry,’” Walker said. “Do not call her strong when she needs care.”

“Believe her, respond sooner and care better,” Walker urged. “Be the kind of Christian who does not dismiss the mother’s cry.”