My daughter came into this world four months too soon.
For four months, we lived beneath the blinking lights and beeping machines of the neonatal intensive care unit at one of the best children’s hospitals in the United States. Every single day, I watched her chest rise and fall with fierce determination—a rhythm more sacred than any song I’d ever heard. And every single day as I was healing, body torn and spirit shaken, I kept watch. Wondering if she would survive the night.
My then-husband and I both worked full-time. We had what people call “good jobs.” We had private insurance. We had done things the so-called “right” way. And still, my daughter’s and my hospital bills climbed toward hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Medicaid saved us.
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It stepped in where our private insurance fell short. It covered the care that helped my daughter live. It gave me space to recover from the complications of her birth. And because I qualified for Medicaid, I also qualified for WIC, which ensured there was food in the fridge and formula in the cabinet when I couldn’t nurse. Without those programs, I would still be in debt today, almost 20 years later. I might have lost our home. I honestly don’t know how I would’ve made it back to myself.
Public assistance didn’t just help us survive; it helped us recover and thrive. It gave us a second chance to live with dignity.
So when I hear politicians talk about “lazy welfare moms” or “irresponsible spending,” I think of mothers like me. I think of babies like mine. And I know they’re flat out lying.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed July 3, 2025, is everything but beautiful. It is treacherous. It slices through Medicaid and shreds the very supports that keep families like mine afloat. It does this all while handing over $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.
For Black women, especially, this bill is not just bad policy; it’s a blueprint for abandonment and deep harm. The bill includes the largest Medicaid cuts in U.S. history. That’s not just numbers on a page; that’s a death sentence for some of us.
More than 65% of Black births are covered by Medicaid. And still, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. When a mother hemorrhages and dies because she couldn’t afford prenatal care, the state will call it
“a tragedy.” When a baby is born too early because her mother had to choose between groceries and gas to get to the clinic, it will be called “unfortunate.” But we know better.
None of what is coming will be mere misfortune. It will be the result of intentional policy. It will be neglect baked into law.
The Big Beautiful Bill also targets Planned Parenthood, stripping Medicaid funding from clinics that offer abortion services, even when the money is used for preventive care. The bill doesn’t just go after abortion—it threatens access to cancer screenings, STI testing, prenatal visits and birth control, especially for low-income patients who rely on these clinics as their only source of care.
Over 2.4 million people, many of them Black and brown women, rely heavily on these facilities for reproductive care. And when those clinics close, Black women will be hit hardest. We already die from cervical cancer at rates 65% higher than white women. Denying access to reproductive care isn’t just cruel; for Black women, it is a calculated decision—a quiet, systemic verdict on who is allowed to heal and who is left to die.
Another way this atrocious bill harms Black women is in how it expands work requirements for SNAP, demanding that recipients log 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, or training, even as costs rise and wages stagnate. But let’s be clear: Black women are already among the most active labor groups in this country. Many of us are working multiple jobs while caring for elders and children. We’re doing the most with the least, and still, we are asked to prove our worth, over and over again.
We know this bill isn’t about encouraging work. It’s about punishing poverty. It’s about turning hunger into a test and bureaucracy into a weapon. And we also know who will be hurt most. Nearly one in four Black children rely on SNAP to eat.
Those hungry children will learn early that the leaders of this country see their needs as a burden. Hungry mothers will skip meals so their children don’t have to. And too many hardworking families will internalize their struggles, believing their hunger is a personal failure, rather than the result of a government that has turned its back on their most basic needs. SNAP doesn’t just fill plates. It protects dignity. And when you take that away, you don’t just cause hunger—you cause harm that can echo for generations.
