Sen. Bill Cassidy of LA, who is also an MD specializing in GI or liver disease, had an interview with POLITICO for the Harvard Chan School of Public Health series Public Health on the Brink on May 19.

He has claimed to be unapologetically “prolife”, but said in this interview when asked what needs to be done about LAs high maternal mortality rate, “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”

I discuss these statements with Charles Johnson who founded of 4Kira4moms on 2017 after losing his wife Kira Dixon Johnson during a routine cesarean at Cedar Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He is a voice for families facing unnecessary maternal loss and ending the maternal mortality crisis in this country.

Recently, he worked with congress to pass the preventing maternal death act which is the first ever to combat the maternal mortality crisis in the US. The bill was signed into law on 12/21/2018 and dedicated to the memory of Kira Dixon Johnson.