Memorials: Smailes Cemetery

Posted on July 8, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

Date of Visit: June 13, 2024
Address:17102 Stanaford Road, Danese, WV 25831

One of the things that I love about traveling is finding small cemeteries along country roads and wandering through them to check out the history of a place. Unfortunately, many small country cemetaries leave me with more questions than answers and this one was no exception. It was small and very well kept and even some of the older graves had flowers on them, but I wanted to know more about the people who populated this place and who mourned the loved ones who had left too soon.

As my daughter and I visited (see her account here) not too long after Memorial Day, it wasn’t surprising to see many graves adorned with American flags as recognition of our veterans’ service to our country. A number of graves were also adorned with fresh and silk flowers, and it warmed my heart to see graves from 50 years ago that were clean and well-kept with flowers showing someone still cared.

The graves of children are also hard to visit as I imagine the horrific pain that the parents must have gone through. I cannot imagine the pain of having a child die and having to plan their funeral instead of their future. One family had lost two infants, Kathy and John, almost three years to the day apart. John was born on February 24, 1954 and died on February 25, 1954 and Kathy was born on February 24, 1957 and died on February 26, 1957. The pain their parents went through must have been incredible. And despite both infants having lived one day almost 70 years ago, both graves were well tended and had small bouquets. My mind immediately began to wonder who was placing flowers on their graves in such an act of devotion.

The other graves that tugged at my heart strings were several with hand carved gravestones. I cannot imagine the act of devotion required to carve a tombstone for a loved one. The saddest of these was one from 1935 for Andy. Based on the tombstone, it looked as if Andy was 9 when he tied and he was buried next to a relative who also died in 1935. My mind spun all kinds of questions around their deaths wondering if they were father and son, wondering who carved Andy’s tombstone, and wondering who they left behind.

A small fenced off corner of Smailes Cemetery was labeled Sovine-Zickafoose Cemetery. As with the larger cemetery, the graves here were well kept and there were flowers on a number of graves. There was no indication as to whether the Sovine-Zickafoose family was related to Smailes or if they just happened to choose to put cemeteries in adjacent plots of land.

Although I left with more questions than answers, it made me smile to know that in this corner of West Virginia, the dead were not forgotten and their families visited with them on a regular basis. I guess that’s really all any of us can ask for.

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Documentary Review: How to Die in Oregon

Posted on July 5, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

How to Die in Oregon opens in Roger Sagner’s living room. He is surrounded by family and friends as he prepares to down the lethal drink that will end his life. Thanks to Oregon’s death with dignity law, Roger and other terminally ill patients can choose when to die. Ironically, enough being able to choose when to die, allows terminally ill patients to truly live in their last few months. Multiple people speak to how knowing they will have the choice to end their lives on their terms has given them piece of mind.

One of these patients is Cody Curtis who has been diagnosed with recurrence of liver cancer. She has been given six months to live and has chosen a proposed death date. However, when that date comes, she is feeling good so she chooses to wait. With palliative care and pain management, she ends up living almost seven months more. These months are filled with joyous and love filled moments with her family and friends. When she finally makes the decision to end her life, she is surrounded by her family.

I was surprised by how joyous this movie about death with dignity was. Even though the stories of terminally ill patients were sad, the undercurrent was of choice and people who were calmed by the knowledge that they had the right to choose when to die.

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Let this be a Moment of Remembering

Posted on July 3, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

Let this be a moment of remembering
The first time I met you
As you ran and played, you kept coming back to me
As if to ask, “Will you be my mama?”

Let this be a moment of remembering
The bark you had when “intruders” invaded
And you met your human brother and sister for the first time
They surprised by you and you surprised by them

Let this be a moment of remembering
The laughter you sparked
As you herded the swingset in the backyard
With utter conviction you could tame it

Let this be a moment of remembering
All the butter wrappers we found on the floor
As you stole your favorite treat off the counter
Your preference for butter over beef clear

Let this be a moment of remembering
Your comfort and soft kisses
When my world fell apart
Your love keeping me going

Let this be a moment of remembering
Your fear as you thought we would leave you
Your refusal to leave the U-Haul
So you wouldn’t be left behind

Let this be a moment of remembering
Your happiness in your new yard
Your joy in knowing your family was always there for you
Our joy in snuggles and love

Let this be a moment of remembering
Our fear that last morning
The gentleness with which you said goodbye
Your last act of agency to lay in the sun as your heart stopped

Let this be a moment of remembering
Every Valentine’s Day when we celebrate
Your birthday and your love
As you live your next life over the rainbow bridge

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Memorials: Old Town Graveyard

Posted on July 1, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

Date visited: June 1, 2024
Address: 265-299 E. Liberty Street, Medina, OH

Medina’s Old Town Cemetery appears to be the quintessential church graveyard, as it is a small and quiet field of graves nestled between two churches, the Congregational Church to the west or the Episcopal Church. However, it has never had any connection to either church and it is over 70 years older than both of them. The first internment was in 1810 and the last was in 1946. Buried here are veterans from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, and World War II.

Medina’s second cemetery, Spring Grove Cemetery, was built in 1883 and after it was built, many came to consider Old Town Cemetery as dreary and old-fashioned. However, I found it peaceful and sweet when my daughter and I visited it. The cemetery is well-kept and there were flags on the graves of veterans the day we visited as it was right after Memorial Day. It was hot the day that we visited, but the huge old trees kept us cool and protected us as we wandered around the graves of some of Medina’s first settlers.

The tombstones were beautiful, and some of them looked as if they had been carved by hand. Sadly, some of them were toppled and broken due to age. The words carved, in some cases 200 years ago, were hard to read on others. However, unlike some older cemeteries, there was no sense of neglect. The most startling moment in this little cemetery came when I came up to a gravestone and startled a fawn. (S)he ran away faster than I could pull out my camera, but it was a sweet moment that reminded me that cemeteries can be homes for the dead and the living.

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Book: What the Dead Know

Posted on June 28, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

True crime aficionados know that medical examiners, like the late great Dr. Donald Mallard (Ducky) on NCIS, talk to the dead and the dead talk back. It is not unusual when watching an episode of NCIS to hear Ducky, or his successor, holding a one-sided conversation with the corpse on the table. These conversations include laments about the deceased’s death as well as questions about what killed them. These conversations serve as a way to advance the plot and also show that the MEs have not forgotten the humanity of the corpse.

Although the conversation with corpses is minimal in What the Dead Know, Butcher does help the living understand what can be learned from corpses and crime scenes. Butcher spent 23 years as a New York City Death Investigator. She was not responsible for autopsying the dead, but was responsible for visiting death scenes around the city to photograph and gather evidence. Her clients included the elderly who died alone in one bedroom apartments, murder victims in alleys, and the desperate who die by suicide.

She opens with the story of a man who died by hanging, but who intended to electrocute whoever cut him down. He had unscrewed all the light bulbs and set it up to look as if the power was out in his apartment. However, he plugged in a power cord and used that to hang himself. If Butcher had not had a torn tendon and been unable to cut him down, she would have been electrocuted. She caught it through reviewing photos and was able to alert the morgue techs who did cut him down. Other stories include stories of men who died in flophouses and women who died in multimillion dollar townhouses.

Butcher was on sick leave on 09/11/2001 and like many of us she turned on her TV after someone called to tell her that something was going on in New York. She watched the tower’s fall from the perspective of a death scene investigator. As she watched, she thought about all the people who might have died, wondered how they would find their bodies, and how they would be identified. She was able to enter the city on 09/12 and she tells the tale of an insider who helped identify the bodies, helped coordinate resources, and was there in the aching aftermath when all that helpers could do was identify bodies and console the living.

Although the title of the book is What the Dead Know, this book is not only about what the dead can teach us about life in general, it is also about what happens to a person when they live in a world of death and destruction, when they spend 8 hours or more every day looking at dead people. Butcher is an alcoholic and she suffered a breakdown that led her to lose her first career and led her to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. She loved her job and did it well for 23 years, but when she was forced out, all the pain and ugliness she had absorbed for 23 years demanded to be let out. Butcher sought help at an in-patient facility and worked to regain her mental health. When she came out, she was more in touch with her feelings and ready for her next career as an author and an actor.

What the Dead Know provides a fascinating look at the world of death investigations and what goes on behind the scenes, but it is also a very human book about the dangers of keeping all our pain bottled up.

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Academia: My Interest in Afterlife Beliefs

Posted on June 26, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

This was written as part of my coursework at Marian University, where we were assigned to write about our interest in the afterlife.

Original Submission Date: March 10. 2023

One moment the rise and fall of Luke’s chest signified he was alive and the spirit that made him my beloved dog was there, the next moment as the medicine stopped his heart he was gone. Even though his body sprawled across the floor looked like the hundreds of photos I’d take of him sleeping, the essence that made him Luke was gone. Luke’s death was the first time I had sat with a loved one as they died and it impacted me profoundly as on paper death is black and white, one moment a heart is beating and the next it is not, but in reality it is a profound experience of essence leaving.

Despite his essence leaving his body and his cremains being planted under a tree in my yard, Luke hasn’t left my heart or my home. My entire family has heard him jump off a bed upstairs and we have heard the pitter patter of dog feet on the second floor even when the living dogs are on the first floor. I have also felt him snuggle up to me in bed even when Wendy and Clark, our living dogs, are sleeping on the couch. Luke is not the only ghost, for want of a better term, that I have encountered, but he is the most familiar. My encounters with other realms have rarely been visual but have most often been olfactory and auditory. For instance, there was the time my entire family smelled horses while wandering the halls of the Rosehill Mausoleum and when we turned the corner we saw crypts of the horsey set, easily identifiable by the horseshoes over the doors of the crypts.

It is not only encounters with spirits from other realms that has fueled my interest in afterlife beliefs, it is also my memories of past lives. Sometimes these memories are spontaneous such as the memory of holding my daughter close as we both slowly died of starvation in Colonial America. Or the memory of being a Native American Medicine Woman and saving a dying man who I would go on to have a love/hate relationship in future lives. Some of these memories are mere figments as if they happened eons ago, but others are as clear as the memories of this life.

I am interested in afterlife beliefs because of my own experiences and I believe that humans in general are interested because of their own experiences, but also because the afterlife is the great unknown. While people who have experienced NDEs can tell us about the gateway to the afterlife, they cannot help us understand people who have truly died and not come back. I am interested in both afterlife beliefs around the world and about afterlife-related extraordinary experiences. I am particularly interested in a comparison of afterlife-related extraordinary experiences between cultures. I have done research into shamanic beliefs across cultures and have been intrigued by the similarities. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of near-death experiences cross culturally.

Questions

Is it possible to have shamanic experiences and to study them academically? I’ve found that it was difficult for me to journey and have shamanic experiences when I was studying shamanism academically.
Do men and women have different near-death experiences?

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Memorials: Spring Grove Cemetery

Posted on June 24, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

Date visited: June 1, 2024
Address: 785 E Washington St, Medina, OH 44256

Medina’s Spring Grove Cemetery, which is the town’s “new” cemetery, dates to 1883 and is characteristic of a rural or garden cemetery with winding paths, old growth trees, and graves that are spread out across the property. There’s also a mausoleum and two columbariums.

In addition to serving as a cemetery, Spring Grove is also an accredited arboretum and has over 600 trees and many bird species onsite. Spring Grove also has verifiable connections to the Underground Railroad, which helped enslaved people escape to Canada, and became a member of the National Underground Network to Freedom in 2022. There are also several people buried in Spring Grove who worked to help enslaved people escape or helped them after the war.

Spring Grove is a beautiful cemetery and wandering around the grounds was a peaceful experience. However, it is not as grand as Lakeview Cemetery, with winding hills and paths and an abundance of wildlife. However, the day my daughter and I visited, it was peaceful and a relaxing place to spend time.

We also found a lot of really unique tombstones at Spring Grove including two hand carved wooden markers for members of the National Guard and a several photo gravestones. We didn’t get a chance to visit the mausoleum and we only toured a small section of the cemetery, so I’ll update this post once we’ve done that.

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Books: All the Living and the Dead

Posted on June 21, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

When I think of people who work with the dead, I think of people who work in funeral homes, including funeral directors and embalmers, police detectives and that’s about it. However, in her entertaining book All the Living and the Dead, Haley Campbell identified several more professions that work with the dead, including crime scene cleaner and death mask sculptor. She did, however, skip the death scene investigator.

Campbell explains that she became fascinated with death when her cartoonist father was working on a graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. Campbell started doing drawings of her own and was fascinated by not on the the fact that someone could be alive one moment and dead the next, but also by what physically happened to a body when it died.

All the Living and the Dead, follows Campbell as she seeks to better understand death and those that work with it. Her first interview with a death worker is when she visits Poppy’s funeral home in London and gets to assist in preparing a body for a viewing. She also learns about bodies donated to scene when she visits with Terry, who runs the Anatomical Services lab at the Mayo Clinic in MN. He is responsible for taking care of the bodies and making sure they are respected. Part of his role is dissecting bodies prior to classes so that if medical students are studying hips, that is what they see. However, although parts of his job are gruesome and bloody, Terry always makes sure to maintain his patients humanity such as the time after doctors were practicing face transplants, he made sure that the faces were swapped back so that every person left his morgue for cremation or burial with the correct face.

Another death related career that Campbell explored was disaster victim identification. She interviewed Mark Oliver from Kenyon whose job it was to assemble teams to fly to disaster sites at a moment’s notice to help with identifying the dead. The company also helped with the softer side of disaster recovery, including fielding questions from the media and making arrangements for family members to fly to disaster sites. Kenyon has considered things that few people think about when preparing for disasters, such as not serving barbecued meat at a fire site. Their warehouses are packed with gear designed to retrieve and identify human remains to help grieving families.

It was not the overwhelming gruesomeness of disaster recovery or even crime scene cleaning that most impacted Campbell, it was when she was observing an Anatomical Pathology Technician do an autopsy on a baby and when the baby was being washed it slipped beneath the water and even though it was already dead, Campbell felt as if she was watching the child drown. That moment more than anything seemed to make the fragility of life and the finality of death real for Campbell, and it led her to seek out a death worker who hadn’t been on her original list: a bereavement midwife.

Bereavement midwife’s help mothers whose children are stillborn or who die shortly after birth. If it is known that a child will not survive, they are taken to a special wing at Heartland Hospital in Birmingham so they will not be exposed to the happiness and joy that normally accompanies a child’s birth. The special Eden Ward at Heartland caters to parents who will not go home with a child. The specially trained midwifes are there to help parents with their loss by providing tiny caskets and by doing what they can to memorializing these tiny lives.

As a thanatologist, I seek out a lot of books on death, but this book was an impulse read that I’m really glad I read. Most of it is upbeat and provides a sense of how carrying people who work with the dead–and their living loved ones–really are.

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Academic: Black Maternal Mortality and Reduced Abortion Access

Posted on June 19, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

This paper was for a class in my thanatology program
Class: African American Deathways
Date Originally Submitted: August 20, 2023

Black women, regardless of education or wealth, have always been more likely than White women to die due to pregnancy related complications. Abortion restrictions, which have also decreased the availability of maternal care, have led to even higher Black maternal mortality rates. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,00 live births during that same time period (World Health Organization). Although an abortion can refer to both a spontaneous abortion, typically referred to as a miscarriage, the term abortion typically refers to an elective procedure that removes the products of conception or fetus from the uterus (Harvard Health, 2019). In 1973, the US Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that women had a constitutional right to abortion (US Supreme Court, 1973). However, shortly after Roe was decided, states began passing laws that challenged this right. In 2022, the US Supreme Court effectively overturned the Roe decision (US Supreme Court, 2022) and states have begun passing even more restrictive abortion laws. Reducing access to safe and legal abortion increases a Black woman’s risk of dying due to pregnancy related complications.

Maternal mortality, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), results from a number of complications related to pregnancy or childbirth and can occur up to one year after the termination of a pregnancy, either by birth, miscarriage, or abortion. A maternal death includes any female death related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management during pregnancy or childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy. A late maternal death is one that occurs between 43 days and one year of termination of pregnancy (World Health Organization). Maternal death can occur not only due to physical complications of pregnancy, but also mental health complications such as postpartum depression, which can lead to suicide (Eugene Declercq, 2020).

Unsafe abortions have a significantly higher mortality rate than safe abortions and are often a choice made by desperate women. Unsafe abortions are those performed in an environment that does not conform with minimal medical standards or by a person lacking the necessary skills, or both. According to WHO, 4.7 to 13.2% of maternal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe abortions and that in developed regions, 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions (World Health Organization, 2021).

Black maternal mortality rates in the United States have been significantly higher than White maternal mortality rates since records began being kept in 1915. In 1915 the overall maternal mortality rate was 608 deaths per 100,000 live births. However, Black women were 1.8 times more likely to die due to pregnancy related complications. Even as advances in healthcare decreased the overall maternal mortality rate, the disparity between death rates for Black and White women grew reaching 4.3 in 1957. The overall maternal death rate that year was 41 deaths per 100,000 live births; however, the rate for White women was 28 deaths per 100,000 live births while there were 118 deaths for nonwhite women (mostly Black in 1957) (DUNN, 1958, p. CXIII). More recent numbers show that even though the overall maternal mortality rate has been reduced, Black women are still more likely to die due to pregnancy complications than White women. In 2018, 37.1 Black women died for every 100,000 live births compared to 14.7 for White women (Eugene Declercq, 2020). The numbers were even worse in 2021, the second year of the Coronovirus, with a maternal mortality rate for Black women of 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births versus 26.6 for White women (Hoyert, 2023).

There are a number of reasons why Black maternal mortality rates are higher than Whites, but one primary reason is tied is a lack of access to appropriate health care. Margo Snipe, a reporter who has studied maternal mortality among Black women in Georgia said that black women are dying because they are more likely to live in maternity care deserts (Santhanam, Ellis, & Kuhn, 2023). The March of Dimes defines a maternity care desert as a county with no birth centers, no OB/GYN, no hospitals providing obstetric care and no certified nurse midwives. A county was classified as having low access to maternity care services when there were fewer than 60 OB providers per 10,000 births, there were no or one hospitals offering OB services, and 10 percent or more women had no health insurance.

Currently, seven million women live in areas where there is no or low access to maternal health care (March of Dimes, 2022)and these women are disproportionately Black. For instance, Georgia’s Hancock county is classified as a maternal care desert (March of Dimes, 2023)and has a 71.2% Black population (Index Mundi, 2023). In contrast, Bacon county women have full access to maternal health (March of Dimes, 2023) and has a population that is 80 percent White (Index Mundi, 2023). There is a direct connection between living in a maternal health care desert and systematic racism started with slavery, continued into the Jim Crow era, and is still embedded in today’s societal structures (Braveman, Elaine Arkin, Kauh, & Holm, 2022).

Systematic racism may be the cause of maternal health deserts that impact access to care for poor Black women, but more blatant interpersonal racism and discrimination impacts Black women across the socioeconomic spectrum. Black women report that they are not listened to when they express concerns about their health; are not given autonomy to make their own decisions during labor and delivery; and they are often pressured into having a cesarean section, which leads to a higher risk of mortality (Eugene Declercq, 2020). Part of the reason for racism and discrimination against Black women is that some physicians exhibit significant implicit bias toward Black women including assuming that they are uneducated, of low socio-economic status, uninsured, or on drugs. Physicians also sometimes failed to provide adequate information to Black women. For instance, one Black woman was advised to have a cesarean section and when she questioned her doctor, she was told not to worry about it (Renbarger, Phelps, & Broadstreet, 2023). Wealthy and educated women are not immune to this bias. Despite being a superstar tennis player and being able to afford the best health care, Serena Williams was not immune to bias. After giving birth, she reported to her nurse that she was having pain, and due to her past history, asked for a CT scan and heparin. She was initially ignored, but continued to advocate for herself until she got the medical care she needed to save her life (Dwass, 2022).

Maternal death rates overall went down after the Supreme Court’s January 22, 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion a constitutional right (US Supreme Court, 1973). In 1972, the overall maternal mortality rate was 18.1 per 100,000 live births. This rate dropped to 15.5 in 1973 and continued a downward trend until 1987 when it reached 6.6 (PUFFERY, 1993, p. 122). Although, Black women were still dying at a higher rate than White women during this period with a rate of 3.59 times higher in 1973 and a rate of 2.87 times higher in 1987 (Eugene Declercq, 2020), a lower overall maternal mortality rate meant that fewer Black women were dying due to pregnancy related complications. One reason that Black women’s mortality rate remained higher during this time period is that Black women have more limited access to abortion care (DEHLENDORF, HARRIS, & WEITZ, 2013). Overall maternal death rates in the US have been on the rise in the 21^st century going from 12 in 2000 to 21 in 2020 (Maternal Mortality, 2020). During this same period, Black maternal death rates have been approximately three times as high as the rate for White women (Eugene Declercq, 2020).

One reason for the increased mortality rates and their continued disproportionate impact on Black women is the increasing number of abortion restrictions passed at the state level. Although abortion was legalized at the federal level in 1973 with the Roe decision, states began passing restrictive laws almost immediately and between 1973 and 2021 passed over 1,300 abortion restrictions between. These laws include counseling and waiting periods, require ultrasounds, and place restrictions on providers (Nash, 2021). Although these laws were challenged, some were allowed to stand. One of the landmark laws that allowed states to place restrictions on abortion was the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania versus Casey. The decision upheld that abortion was a legally protected right, but allowed states to impose restrictions as long as they were not deemed to be an undue burden. In this instance, Pennsylvania was allowed to implement restrictions on abortion including a requirement that abortion seekers be given information about abortion, wait for 24 hours prior to obtaining an abortion, and that minors must obtain parental consent (Seward, 2009).

Multiple studies have shown that decreased access to safe and legal abortion increases the risk of maternal mortality, especially for Black women. A study analyzing publicly available data between 1995 and 2017 found that after 2009 states with restrictive abortion laws had an average maternal mortality rate of 28.5 per 100,000 births compared to 16.1 in states that protected abortion rights. The burden was even heavier on Black women with a maternal mortality rate of 47.2 in restrictive states and 13.4 in protective states (Vermaa & Shainkerb, 2020). Another study found that reducing the number of Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide abortions as well as other reproductive services, by 20% increased maternal mortality by 8% and that the maternal mortality rate increased by 38% in states that passed restrictive abortion laws (Hawkins, Ghiani, Harper, Baum, & Kaufman, 2020).

Laws restricting access to abortion increase maternal mortality directly by forcing women to choose unsafe abortions and forcing women to carry pregnancies to term. Laws restricting access to abortion do not eliminate abortion, but often force women to choose unsafe abortions which have a higher risk of death (Ravi, 2018). There were 16.1 million legal abortions in the United States between 1998 and 2010 and there were only 108 deaths related to these abortions, yielding an abortion mortality rate of 0.7 deaths per 100,000 abortions. For Black women this rate was 1.1 (Zane, et al., 2015). In contrast, illegal abortions carry an increased risk of death. Although recent statistics for the United States were not readily available, a World Health Organization study has shown that up to 13.2 percent of maternal deaths are related to unsafe abortions (World Health Organization, 2021).

Carrying a pregnancy to term is riskier for women than an abortion and restrictive abortion laws force women to carry pregnancies to terms in a number of ways. These include eliminating access to abortion, which forces women to travel out of state for abortions, something poor women cannot afford. Some restrictive abortion laws also force women to return for multiple visits, something that may not be possible for some women (Nash, 2021). Other restrictive abortion laws do not contain exceptions for maternal health or are so poorly worded that doctors are afraid to perform abortions even when medically necessary for fear of legal ramifications. In one instance, a Texas woman was forced to carry her dead fetus for two weeks due to restrictive Texas law. Although, this woman lived, doctors say that forcing a woman to carry a dead fetus can lead to complications including death (Martinez, 2022)

Laws restricting abortion access also impact women indirectly as clinics offering abortion services as well as other services often close when abortion access is restricted. A 2016 study found that in Texas, where state funding to clinics providing abortion was cut, 60 clinics providing women’s health care were shuttered. As a result of these closures, women lost access to reproductive services including breast cancer screenings, pap smears, contraceptive counseling, and prenatal care (Lu & Slusky, 2016). As Black women are already less likely to have access to contraceptive counseling and use contraception (Dehlendorf, et al., 2014), which can lead to a higher rate of unintended pregnancy (Finer & Zolna, 2011), further restricting access to women’s health care is likely to exacerbate this problem.

One small town in Mississippi is emblematic of the issues with reduced women’s health care. Clarksdale, MS’ population is overwhelmingly Black and poor and the maternal mortality rate in Mississippi is the second highest in the nation with 43 deaths per live births and Black women in the state are four times more likely than White women to die of pregnancy related complications. The Clarksdale Women’s Clinic is one of few women’s clinics in the Delta region, which is larger than the state of Delaware and every time an OB/GYN in the area retires, it receives an influx of new patients. The lack of care in the region means that it can be a four-week which for appointments, which means some pregnant women are not able to see a doctor until later in their pregnancy than is desirable. The Clarksdale Women’s Clinic is only equipped to handle routine pregnancies, which means that mother’s with high risk pregnancies need to take a three hour round trip to receive care and many are unable to make this trip due to financial and other concerns (Alter, 2023),. These means that they are not receiving the care they need to reduce their risk of dying in pregnancy.

Black women have always been more likely than White women to die during pregnancy and anti-abortion restrictions have exacerbated this risk. In 1915, the first year that maternal mortality statistics were compiled in the United States, Black women were almost twice as likely to die from pregnancy related complications as White women and even today are about three times more likely to die than their White counterparts. The reasons for this discrepancy are complicated, but much of the reason stems from systematic racism that has its roots in slavery. Black women are generally poorer than White women and are more likely to live in maternal care deserts, which increases their risk of death. Women also report not being listened to and treated differently than their White peers. Abortion restrictions have increased the risk for Black women as they are more likely than White women to live in areas without access to care and to seek out an illegal abortion. Reducing access to abortion has also led to the closure of women’s health clinics, which means expectant mothers must travel farther for care and, due to poverty, may not be able to access care. In conclusion, restricting abortion access has led to an increase in the deaths of Black women due to pregnancy related complications.

References

Alter, C. (2023, August 14). She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade. Retrieved from Time: https://time.com/6303701/a-rape-in-mississippi/

Braveman, P. A., Elaine Arkin, D. P., Kauh, T., & Holm, N. (2022). Systemic And Structural Racism: Definitions, Examples, Health Damages, And Approaches To Dismantling. Health Affairs. Retrieved from Health Affairs.

DEHLENDORF, C., HARRIS, L. H., & WEITZ, T. A. (2013). Disparities in Abortion Rates: A Public Health Approach. American Journal of Public HEalth, 1772-1779.

Dehlendorf, C., Park, S., Emeremni, C., Comer, D., Vincentt, K., & Borrero, S. (2014). Racial/ethnic disparities in contraceptive use: Variation by age and women’s reproductive experiences. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

DUNN, H. L. (1958). Vital Statistis of the United States 1957. Washington: US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Dwass, E. (2022, August 12). Serena Williams Saved Her Own Life. Retrieved from MedPage Today: https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/popmedicine/100194

Eugene Declercq, L. C. (2020, December 16). Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Primer. Retrieved from The Commonwealth Fund: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-brief-report/2020/dec/maternal-mortality-united-states-primer

Finer, L. B., & Zolna, M. R. (2011). Unintended pregnancy in the United States: Incidence and disparities. Contraception, 475-484.

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Memorial: Cleveland Potter’s Field

Posted on June 17, 2024 by raine.clara.shakti

Date Visited: May 20, 24
Address: Green Rd, Highland Hills, OH 44122

A poem of my father’s introduced me to Potter’s Fields. I can’t locate the poem now, but I remember my sadness in reading about people who had lived their whole lives and then had no one to mourn them. The concept of passing with no one to bury me struck me as sad and of a life lived in loneliness. I’ve since learned that being buried in a Potter’s Field doesn’t necessarily mean you had no one to mourn you, it might just mean there was no one who had the available funds to pay for your funeral.

On a sunny Saturday in May, my daughter and I decided to visit a cemetery to walk among the gravestones for some peace. Lakeview is our normal haunt (pun intended), but we decided to see what other cemeteries were in Cuyahoga County and Google showed us we were close to a cemetery called Memorial Park that was described as a Potter’s Field. While a lot of Potter’s Fields are part of a larger cemetery, Cleveland’s Potter’s Field stands alone at the end of a golf course.

There is no sign to mark the entrance and we almost missed the turn. Even when we entered, we were unsure if we were in the right place as there were no gravestones, just trees and grass. Driving a little further, we did spot one monument and a sign with a QR Code indicating you could scan it to find your loved ones. We parked and walked over to the boulder and read the inscription. It seemed odd that we were in a cemetery with no gravestones and no indication that there were people buried beneath our feet, but the QR code told us that this might just be a Potter’s Field so we took a few minutes and wandered around this serene and holy place. Despite the traffic sounds from the road, we found this small cemetery peaceful with birds chirping and the sunlight streaming through the trees.

We left shortly after, but coming home I Googled this small Potter’s Field and found a 2015 article from CleveScene that gave a little background on this small cemetery. According to the article, the first burial was in 1904 and approximately 18,000 people are buried in this space. As I reflect on these 18,000 people who died in the 120 years since this small green space became a cemetery, I am once again filled with sadness at the thought that there was no one to remember them and even if the truth is that they were buried here due to poverty and lack of care, it is still sad that there is no headstone where people can come and say a prayer.

Posted in Cemetery, Funeral, Grief, Memorials | Comments Off