London Lamar Maternal Health Care | Mike Bloomberg for President

In 2015, I got a phone call late in the middle of the night in December and it was because my cousin, she had passed and she was eight months pregnant and she had her heart stopped and she dropped dead. This is a national crisis because black women are dying all over the country from maternal health issues and whether you're poor, you're in the most privileged positions, they're still implicit bias. The doctor's not responding to our complaints about pain. They think that we have, you know, as black women, we're born with this superpower to withstand all of these issues that concern our health. When I saw President Barack Obama become President of the United States when I was 17 years old, it inspired me to pursue politics. I wanted to make sure I was at the decision-making table. Doctors who represent communities of colors are keen to the issues that come with our culture, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and all of those other medical issues that affect people of color, especially black women. And so that's why I'm so supportive of Mike Bloomberg's plan to fund HBCU students who want to go to medical school. I think the next President of the United States should support maternal health care by making it a priority. Women are 50 percent of the economic base. Women are 50 percent of our population and the fundamental right to health care services is something that no citizen should be denied.