#Justice For Christine Fields

#Justice For Christine Fields

My beloved fiancée Christine Fields was killed by medical error and neglect while giving birth to our third child at Woodhull Hospital in Central Brooklyn, November 2023. Repeated protests brought some attention to Christine’s case, but not nearly the kind of support a grieving, newly single-parent household with young children needs to heal. Woodhull Hospital has acted antagonistically at every opportunity, including withholding paperwork for our baby Anuel that has kept him from qualifying for many services, including health insurance. Because our lease was in Christine’s name, our landlord illegally locked me and our children out of the apartment and we are currently fighting eviction in housing court. In addition, racist judges in a racist system have turned what should have been a simple process of clarifying custody for our children into prolonged dealings with family court.

Instead of healing, getting to enjoy Anuel’s first months, and focusing on projects and policies that would address the factors that contributed to Christine’s death, I spend nearly every day of the week going to appointments and navigating broken systems to take care of our family and the kids. Losing their mom and my forever person is already too much. Now we have also lost work, income, our car, potentially our home, and many family connections (that have become strained by her absence).

This GoFundMe is set up for our family to receive mutual aid while we continue to settle Christine’s affairs and combat the systems that lead to Christine’s death and subsequent unnecessary suffering of our family. Initially, I’m hoping to raise enough to help cover wages I’ve lost since being home with the kids, along with paying for therapy and high-quality childcare for our kids who are struggling with their loss. With your generosity, we hope to also have the funds so that will allow me to get more involved with advocacy for Black Maternal Health, pursue projects to prevent maternal deaths and support others who experience them!! We’d love to tell you about them as we go; sign up here to receive future updates!! If you’re in NYC and want to help in hands-on ways, leave a note to let us know!!

Intentions for the future: We intend for any aid we receive via this GFM to benefit all Black Birthing People by surviving, thriving and through the advocacy it will allow us to participate in. If a future lawsuit makes it feasible, we hope to pay forward anything donated here to other families in similar situations who may not want to go public or have a strong legal case.