Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” brings to Black women, including limiting reproductive care, maternal healthcare, and access to supplemental assistance programs such as WIC and SNAP.
My daughter came into this world four months too soon.
For four months, we lived beneath the blinking lights and beeping machines of the neonatal intensive care unit at one of the best children’s hospitals in the United States. Every single day, I watched her chest rise and fall with fierce determination—a rhythm more sacred than any song I’d ever heard. And every single day as I was healing, body torn and spirit shaken, I kept watch. Wondering if she would survive the night.
My then-husband and I both worked full-time. We had what people call “good jobs.” We had private insurance. We had done things the so-called “right” way. And still, my daughter’s and my hospital bills climbed toward hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Medicaid saved us.
It stepped in where our private insurance fell short. It covered the care that helped my daughter live. It gave me space to recover from the complications of her birth. And because I qualified for Medicaid, I also qualified for WIC, which ensured there was food in the fridge and formula in the cabinet when I couldn’t nurse. Without those programs, I would still be in debt today, almost twenty years later. I might have lost our home. I honestly don’t know how I would’ve made it back to myself.
Public assistance didn’t just help us survive; it helped us recover and thrive. It gave us a second chance to live with dignity.
So when I hear politicians talk about “lazy welfare moms” or “irresponsible spending,” I think of mothers like me. I think of babies like mine. And I know they’re flat out lying.
The “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed July 3, 2025, is everything but beautiful. It is treacherous. It slices through Medicaid and shreds the very supports that keep families like mine afloat. It does this all while handing over $1.5 trillion in tax cutsto billionaires and corporations.
