The Chicago Maternity Center Story

After 78 years offering prenatal and maternity care, a medical centre assisting with home births for thousands of low-income women from inner city Chicago is threatened. In hospitals, women from poor and working class backgrounds receive second-class healthcare, and black women face significantly higher risk of death or infant mortality during childbirth. But the maternity centre's promise of safer and cheaper care doesn't fit into the transforming paradigm of healthcare—and the board, once dominated by women interested in charity, becomes controlled by corporate executives. This powerful investigation from doc-collective Kartemquin Films brilliantly weaves together a case study of the home birth of Sharene Miller, a young working-class black mother, with a larger investigation into the systemic transformation of women's healthcare into a business. In celebration of Kartemquin's 50th anniversary, Hot Docs proudly presents this stunning artifact of feminist activism. (Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival)