Is Helping Black Moms Out Financially Unconstitutional?

By Alexa Spencer, Word In Black

A lawsuit claims Abundant Birth Project is discriminatory because it grants stipends to Black and Pacific Islander moms in San Francisco.

A nonprofit and a law firm filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco and the state of California over Abundant Birth Project, an initiative that provides pregnant Black and Pacific Islander San Franciscans with $1,000 monthly stipends.

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“These government-sponsored and publicly funded programs are designed to select beneficiaries on a racially exclusionary basis. This is unconstitutional… Defendants’ payment schemes also discriminate unlawfully on the bases of gender/gender identity and sexual orientation,” the lawsuit reads. 

The Abundant Birth Project was launched in 2021 to study the health impacts of providing supplemental income to mothers during pregnancy and for six months postpartum. Its goal was to reduce racial disparities in San Francisco, a city where Black mothers accounted for 4% of births between 2007 and 2016, but made up half of all maternal deaths.

Read what leaders in the Black community have to say about the suit in the full article.

Precedent has been set for suits of this nature with the Fearless Fund, which offers grants to Black women entrepreneurs.

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