Birth | Natural Family Blog 🌹 Jenny Hatch

Last night my friend Laura Shanley came over and we spent hours pouring over this little gem from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. We were smoking cigars and plotting and planning how to respond to this diatribe against homebirth…. After 7 hours of non-stop focused back and forth on how to prepare for this blog entry, I finally decided to just lay it on the line. Disbelief, sarcasm, and humor…the only way to deal with the Dinos from the Medical Establishment.
Actually Laura spent about four seconds forwarding me this little ditty and I spent about three minutes writing her back and writing my responses to the statement just took a little over 20 mintues. Don’t you just love the web??? Blogging, Email, and Links…a birth activists best friend.

Jenny Hatch

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My responses to the ACOG 2007 Review are BOLDED and in ITALICS.
‘Lay’ Midwives & Home Birth
Troubling Trends in State Legislation:
■ Home birth bills on the rise.
■ Least qualified direct-entry midwives gaining licensure.
■ The midwives’ advantage.
■ ACOG on the defensive.
Home Birth Bills on the Rise
We are seeing an increase in ‘lay’ midwifery bills in the states. Backed by individual
State Midwifery Guilds and by the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) and its
credentialing unit, the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), these bills are
being introduced – and passed – in more and more states.
For example, in Virginia in 2005, certified professional midwives (CPMs) finally
prevailed in what had been a decade-long campaign for licensure and legalization of
home birth. New Republican majorities in the Virginia General Assembly helped assure
the midwives’ victory. This year, it was the Missouri midwives who prevailed in their
perennial battle for licensure.
(A lawsuit has been filed to block the new Missouri law.)
We just can’t lose the one state in the union that has the most “Progressive” (bass ack ward) legislation on homebirth and was going to be our model for the rest of the country!!!
What’s behind this trend?
A legislative handbook developed by MANA provides insight into the midwives’
strategy. The 96-page handbook is full of lobbying advice, tactics and propaganda. It
includes a detailed step-by-step primer on getting a home birth bill passed.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an influential 2,400 member
organization of conservative state lawmakers, recently endorsed a model bill for the
licensure of certified professional midwives (CPMs) which was crafted by
MANA/NARM. Model legislation developed by ALEC gets wide attention in state
legislatures across the country.
The ‘lay’ midwives’ internal philosophy on state regulation and licensure appears to have
shifted. In the past, their position on licensure reflected the dominance of midwives who
did not want to be regulated, opposed state licensure, and defended within their
individual guilds the right to stay unlicensed and practice underground. While there are
midwives who still do not want to be regulated and who do not support the current
licensure campaign, for the most part you don’t see them speaking publicly against
licensure in the legislature or elsewhere. Even the nurse-midwives no longer can be
counted on to speak publicly against home birth or lesser trained midwives.