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Libertarians: support Delaware midwives!

Today's dead tree edition had a brief pictorial on the protest of Delaware midwives regarding legislative attempts to effectively kill the practice of home birth in our state.

Unfortunately, you cannot find the article on the Delaware Online site to link to, so I guess you'll just have to trust me that it is there.

Delaware is attempting to stamp out the practice of home birth (even in low-risk pregnancy) by creating a licensing requirement that absolutely no practitioner can meet.  In fact, only one DE midwife has been licensed by the state in the past decade, and she received hers only because she was grand-fathered (grand-mothered?) into the system, and is only allowed to practice among Mennonite families in central and southern Delaware.

There are "underground" midwives in Delaware, but now the State is actually starting to knock on the doors of new parents and demand to know who helped them have their babies so that these folks can be prosecuted.

A good place to start if you are sincerely interested in learning about this issue is Birth Anarchy's series on Oppressive Midwifery laws in Delaware.

For Libertarians it is important to remember that it is not important that you or I want to have our children at home, or drink unpasteurized milk, or homeschool, or own AR-15s with large-capacity magazines.  In point of fact I don't do any of those things.

But those are not my choices to make for other people, and if I don't stand up vocally for their rights to make their own personal choices, then who is going to be around for me when they come for bloggers?

Comments

Joanne Christian said…
Ummm Steve---it's been a long week. And licensing a midwife, who is subordinate on another person's malpractice insurance, and brings a vulnerability to a potential receiving healthcare facility---well is just not real warm and fuzzy for the other people stuck with a mess to potentially clean up.

I'm sorry the word midwife was hijacked by healthcare professionals. But, if you want your home birth, or barn birth, jacuzzi birth, or manger birth---can't you just go fetch Sadie who is known all around for those things---and not involve the credentialing hang-up of what a midwife is in the 21st century? Just an oops---baby born at home. I hear it's done all around the world, even the desert, fields, forests, caves, and front lawns (true story if I ever get the chance to tell you).

Another "occupation" redefined regardless of cultural credentialing. Personally, I should have had a vet deliver my children. With their sizes, I may as well calved out.

The DA showing up? I don't know. There are some public health issues that require compliance after a live birth, or any birth, but I'm betting he was a nice neighbor looking to "boil water".

I wouldn't worry so much protection of mother and infant, moves you up in line as being a credible threat (maybe a menace :) )in relation to the health and well-being of a vulnerable population. Just sayin'. I think your safe with this blogging gig.

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