In 1987, the World Health Organization, or WHO, took action to improve the quality of maternal health around the world through the declaration of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, or the SMI, at an international conference concerning maternal mortality in Nairobi, Kenya. Initially, the SMI aimed to reduce the prevalence of maternal mortality around the world, as over 500,000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth annually at the time of its inception, while about 98 percent of those deaths occurred in low-income countries. While WHO led the initiative, many organizations in various countries participated in additional programs in order to implement the goals of the SMI. WHO developed the SMI in order to reduce the prevalence of maternal death, developing one of the first proposals that brought attention to maternal health on a global basis at a time when global maternal mortality was high.

In 2014, the Center for Reproductive Rights, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health released a co-authored report titled “Reproductive Injustice: Racial and Gender Discrimination in U.S. Healthcare,” hereafter “Reproductive Injustice.” In “Reproductive Injustice,” the organizations evaluate trends in the US federal system concerning racial and gender discrimination in sexual and reproductive healthcare. The organizations presented “Reproductive Injustice” to the United Nations, or UN, to review US compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a UN treaty that obligates participating nations to commit to eliminating racial discrimination. The authors of “Reproductive Injustice” argue that the US had not met its treaty obligations as evidenced by racial disparities in maternal mortality rates and legal barriers to healthcare coverage and access for non-citizen women.

Charles Richard Drew was an African American surgeon who helped improve blood transfusion practices during World War II and contributed to the development of modern-day blood banking. Sometimes called the Father of the Blood Bank, Drew showed that blood plasma, or the liquid component of blood, could be safely separated from whole blood, stored, and used for transfusion. Plasma has several advantages over whole blood, including that it can be stored safely for longer and transported over long distances. Drew’s methods allowed medics to treat thousands of injured Allied soldiers who were suffering from blood loss. Drew was also an advocate for racial desegregation in the United States and fought against the discriminatory blood donation practices of the American Red Cross. Drew’s work made blood transfusions safer and more accessible, which not only helped the Allied war effort in World War II, but also led to improvements in the treatment of complications during childbirth and efforts to reduce maternal mortality rates, particularly among Black women.