Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital–St. Joseph Campus in Milwaukee serves a predominantly black, low-income neighborhood, and is located between a busy commercial street on one side, and a neighborhood on the other. A Bible verse is seen on a sign outside the building. Photographed on Dec. 6. Credit: Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch

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Expectant mothers in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, have a wealth of hospitals to choose from, unlike some of their counterparts in rural areas. For the county’s black and Hispanic women, however, the choice is often a false one. 

Milwaukee babies’ first moments can reflect the city’s segregation. At the secular suburban hospital Aurora West Allis Medical Center, more than six out of 10 babies were born to white mothers, according to state Department of Health Services data. Eight miles away at St. Joseph, a Catholic hospital, more than six out of 10 babies were born to black mothers. 

That trend holds statewide. One-third of births to white women statewide occur in Catholic hospitals, compared to more than half of births to black women. Wisconsin is the only state where black women are more likely to deliver their babies in a Catholic institution than a non-Catholic one, according to Columbia Law School researchers.

Credit: Brandon Raygo / Cap Times

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Hispanic women are also more likely than white women to give birth at a Catholic hospital, with 45 percent giving birth in these facilities in Wisconsin. 

Serving the poor is central to the Catholic ethos. But focusing on poorer patients means the hospital’s religious-based restrictions may exacerbate existing racial and socioeconomic disparities in reproductive care. 

Women of color, those who live in poverty and those with less education are less likely to use contraception and more likely to have unintended pregnancies, according to University of California-San Francisco researchers. A quarter of all Wisconsin births resulted from mistimed or unintended pregnancies in 2017, according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, which is similar to the national rate. 

Credit: Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch

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Women of color and those living in poverty are also more likely to have maternal risk factors. In Wisconsin, more than half of black mothers delivered with at least one risk factor, such as hypertension or a previous preterm birth, with researchers linking poorer birth outcomes to systemic racism, chronic stress and socioeconomic disadvantage such as substandard housing and low wages. 

“You’re already facing so many barriers,” says Dr. Debra Stulberg, a physician at the University of Chicago Medicine who researches ways to improve reproductive health. “I think the harm inflicted by one additional hurdle to jump over is compounded and needs to be seen in a light that gives it full weight.”

Parker Schorr

Parker Schorr is a public affairs reporting fellow for the Cap Times newspaper in Madison, Wis. As part of the fellowship, Schorr is embedded in the Wisconsin Watch newsroom focusing on in-depth stories of statewide interest. Schorr joined the Center in May 2019 as an investigative reporting intern. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, holding degrees in journalism and sociology. He has interned for University Communications and worked as an editor at The Badger Herald, one of UW-Madison’s student newspapers.

Rikha Sharma Rani

Rikha is a senior writer for Fuller Project. She has reported extensively on immigration, domestic human trafficking, and criminal justice reform. She was on the US-Mexico border in the fall of 2017 providing first-hand accounts of the family separation crisis. In the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, she profiled five formerly incarcerated people who were casting their ballots for the first time. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico Magazine, Montgomery Advertiser, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Rikha holds a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she studied economic and political development. She is also a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Affairs.