Maternal mortality and the failure to value motherhood

By Ryan Bomberger, Exclusive Columnist Friday, May 10, 2024

Mother. It’s a word that invokes the deepest of emotions for both the woman and her child (whether biological, adopted or step). None of us would be here without her. Yes, her. There’s no question from which of the two genders we are all birthed.

Every major dictionary (surprisingly) still defines mother as “the female parent.” The Oxford dictionary expands on this, saying: “a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.” It’s a biological relationship that is wholly unique and differentiates female from male parents. The definition continues, describing a mother as “a woman who undertakes the responsibilities of a parent towards a child.” My mom chose to take responsibility for me — an adopted child whose purpose she would lovingly help unleash.

Motherhood is everything yet is being reduced to a semantic nothing in our culture today. In an effort to degender language and erase what is feminine, a woman is referred to as “a pregnant person”, “a person with a uterus,” “a uterus owner,” “a birthing person,” “a person with a period” or simply a dude. Sorry fellas, only She is She! (Check out my wife’s and my new children’s book here).

Whether linguistically, culturally or medically, motherhood is being attacked. The very thing that provides all of us (barring situations of brokenness and neglect) with protection and loving care is recklessly disregarded and discarded. Pregnancy, for instance, is seen as a disease that needs the violence of abortion to remedy it. Motherhood is considered an inferior option to being a narcissistic celebrity or work-obsessed CEO. It’s viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity to become more than you ever thought you could be. (That slightly reworded quote is from my amazing wife, Bethany, who became a single mom in her late 20s as the result of an unplanned pregnancy). Planned Parenthood offers the exit plan: kill the clump of cells. I mean, there’s nothing special about a relationship between a pregnant person and the products of conception, right?

The truth? Abortion harms women.

What’s bizarre is at the same time our society tries to erase womanhood, it feigns outrage over maternal mortality. The same “feminists” who dismiss the value of motherhood, demand we do more to stop the (relatively small) number of tragic maternal deaths. Planned Parenthood leads this charge as they exploit maternal deaths due to pregnancy complications. Their final solution, of course, is to kill the child. They did it 392,715 times in their last reported year. Yet, Maternal Mortality Review Committees never recommend abortion as the answer. They do, however, heavily emphasize the need for prenatal care, something Planned Parenthood has all but aborted; it's less than 0.1% of their services.

Just to put things into perspective, in 2021 there were 1,205 maternal deaths in the United States within 42 days of delivery. (Keep in mind, some of these deaths have nothing to do with pregnancy.) That same year, there were 12,051 vehicular deaths of females. That’s 10 times the number of maternal deaths reported. Yet you don’t hear groups-formerly-known-as-women’s-rights-groups crying for Automotive Justice! Should we all demand fewer women get in cars?

Abortion numbers have risen since 2017. Maternal deaths have also climbed since 2017 from a rate of 12.7 per 100,000 live births to 32.9 per 100,000 live births in 2021. So, the argument that abortion reduces maternal mortality has always been a lie. Better healthcare does. But that doesn’t fit the anti-motherhood narrative where pregnancy makes women victims who need to be rescued from the violence brought to us by seven male justices in black robes. Wait. Isn’t that patriarchy?

To be honest, our national stats are a mess. A recent Rutgers University study says that the CDC’s maternal mortality reports grossly overestimate the number of annual deaths. In 2013, for instance, the CDC included 382 deaths of women over the age of 60 because the checkbox indicating “pregnant at the time of death” was erroneously checked. “The NVSS still misclassifies the deaths of many non-maternal and incidental deaths as maternal deaths,” the study claims. By the way, the CDC stopped reporting maternal deaths between 2007 and 2017 (thank the Obama administration).

That being said, we can only go with the CDC’s statistics to give us an understanding of these avoidable deaths. In the end, it comes down to less than 1,000 (mostly avoidable) maternal deaths versus over a million (even more avoidable) abortion deaths. But don’t worry, fake feminists and their pro-abortion political allies constantly manipulate maternal mortality to justify abortion mortality. Vice President Kamala Harris has been doing just that since taking office (here, here, and here), saying: “I would challenge the hypocrisy of people who say they care about life and then ignore the maternal mortality crisis.”

Pro-lifers don’t ignore maternal mortality. And it’s a tragedy, not a crisis. It’s why more and more pregnancy centers offer prenatal care. It’s why the American Association of Pro-life OB/GYNs (or AAPLOG) speak directly to this issue to dispel media myths and political propaganda surrounding induced abortion and maternal mortality. According to the CDC, these are a “small number” of events, and over 80% of them are preventable. Harris ignores these facts. Also, how does she address the “racial” disparity in maternal deaths but stands in solidarity with the leading killer of black lives — Planned Parenthood?

Mothers nurture and protect. They don’t disinform and neglect. Sorry, Drew Barrymore, our nation doesn’t need Kamala to be America’s “Mamala”.

So, the next time someone tries to sell you death as a form of combatting death, reject it. The next time someone tries to tell you motherhood and womanhood can be repackaged to include men who can “become pregnant” and men who can discover their “girlhood,” reject it.

But the next time your mother — the female parent who birthed or adopted, nurtured and cared for you — wants to give you a hug and tell you how much she loves you, fully embrace it.

Ryan Bomberger is the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation. He is happily married to his best friend, Bethany, who is the Executive Director of Radiance. They are adoptive parents with four awesome kiddos. Ryan is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, factivist, international public speaker and author of NOT EQUAL: CIVIL RIGHTS GONE WRONG. He loves illuminating that every human life has purpose.