The Power Holders On: Midwifery In Australia

My Birth have uploaded footage to you tube about the fight to save homebirth midwifery in Australia. This footage is from a cabinet meeting held last week with the Prime Minister and the Health Minister where three citizens concerned about the future of midwifery asked the Prime Minister about the reforms.

Something I found frustrating was that the health minister repeatedly mentions the importance of "back-up arrangements" and midwives "working together" with doctors. This shows a lack of insight into the everyday workings of independent midwifery and homebirth. Homebirthers and their midwives already have back-up arrangements and work with hospitals and their staff to ensure safe outcomes. So far the government's intervention through these maternity reforms has indicated that they plan to change this by officially giving doctors within hospitals power over independent midwives and their clients, hence the voters in this clip questioned them about "veto power".

I became quite angry when Roxon urged Michelle McRitchie to "put yourself in the position of the government". Sorry, Nicola, isn't it the government's job to put itself in the position of the constituents and ensure our rights?! I found her to be quite insensitive at that moment, after McRitchie had explained to the health minister just how prohibitive these reforms will be for her personally.

For more information check out the My Birth website here:

http://mybirth.com.au/

The Minister for Women is going to appear on the Australian Broadcasting Company's program "Q and A" tomorrow night./ Please take the time to write a question on the show's website about the future of homebirth and independent midwifery. Click here:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

Birth Choices Rally

(ALP: Australian Labor Party/current political party in power in Australia)

On Thursday I was one of over 100 women, men and children rallying in Ballarat in the hope that Prime Minister Rudd might hear our voices while meeting there. Sadly Rudd was a no show, but for those who did make it to the rally it was a beautiful afternoon in the botanic gardens, children running free, and women sharing their birth stories and fears for the future of birth in Australia.

Justine Caines opened the speeches, sharing how far the movement has come. In particular I remember her mentioning that it wasn't so long ago that the very notion that midwives would be included in medicare was laughable to some, but in the last 12 months that has changed.

There quite a few speakers throughout the rally. The stand out speaker for me was Tami White, a mother who spoke about rights:

"I was left fearful that I would never have another child, or that if I did, my body would never be able to birth that child. My body had failed me.

In fact, my body had not failed me. The SYSTEM had failed me...

[snip]

Thank you for your time today. I will leave you with two final thoughts. The first: Human rights are only rights if everybody shares them. If only some people have particular ‘rights’, they’re not rights at all, but privileges. And, privileges can be taken away. Mine today....who’s tomorrow?

The 2nd is a quote from William Penn, a champion of democracy and a Utopian.

“Right is right, even if everybody is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everybody is for it.

Removing women’s rights to bodily autonomy is wrong, no matter how many people are in support of it."

You can read Tami's entire speech on Facebook: click here.

Another really great speech came from Shae, a mother who has had one traumatic hospital birth and two homebirths. She spoke with great passion, sharing that she found it utterly ridiculous that a politician should "tell me what I can and can't do with my vagina and my uterus!"

More Photos

Media About Protests
Hundreds protest homebirth restrictions
PM Rudd visit: home birth group slams Rudd's garden no show
Women aim birthing protest at PM
Local mum in home birth ban protest
Home birth protest hits the streets
Hunter rally for birth choice
Roxon grilled over proposed midwife changes
Greens fight move to restrict homebirths
Rudd maternity plan dictates women's birth choices

Australian Homebirth National Day of Action

Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will be in Ballarat Victoria on the 18th of February and so will a crowd of angry homebirthers who his government has wronged.

If you're free that day please join us in Ballarat dressed in green, white and purple to protest the government's decision to end independent midwifery in Australia.

For more details see the Facebook event page here.

"The White Australia Policy...I mean The Maternity Services Review"

Gold Cost doula Claire Aslangul wrote the following after hearing the news that the health practitioners bill 2009 had been passed in The Senate and has graciously given me permission to share it:

The White Australia Policy...I mean The Maternity Services Review
How could I get those two Federal government initiatives mixed up?

Well, lets look at the two issues.

The White Australia Policy was a knee-jerk reaction to the "issues" the USA was having with it's negro population and was stimulated by the writings of Charles Pearson, National Life and Character; A Forecast. The governments biggest fear was the uprising of nations of colour, particularly Japan and the control of world finances slipping from the fingers of white men. Anyone wanting to reside in Australia who didn't look "white" had to sit an impassable dictation test.

The Australian Immigration Restriction Act, following Natal and the United States, incorporated a literacy test, in this case, a dictation test, that was so framed as to give Customs Officers maximum flexibility in ensuring that all undesirable immigrants would fail. Applicants could not prepare for this test, which required them to write out, at dictation, any prescribed passage of fifty words in any European language. The American emphasis on understanding the constitution and the importance of education to citizenship had disappeared altogether. In 1908, for example, the following dictation test was given in Western Australia:

"Very many considerations lead to the conclusion that life began on sea, first as single cells, then as groups of cells held together by a secretion of mucilage, then as filaments and tissues. For a very long time low-grade marine organisms are simply hollow cylinders, through which salt water streams’."

The aim in Australia was not to ‘discriminate against illiteracy’, as Cabot Lodge had recommended, but to discriminate against non-whites,

The propaganda sold to the masses was if you can't understand the law, how can you abide by it? We are protecting our citizens by making sure only those that are literate can enter. It wasn't illegal for "coloured folk" to enter Australia, they just had to jump through impossible hoops. Many sighed a sigh of relief and slept soundly in their beds at night knowing the government was there too look after their safety...thanks Mr Deakin!

The Maternity Services Review is probably a knee-jerk reaction by doctors where pesky women are complaining about their birth rapes and choosing to birth outside the system. As of the start of this year OB's are loosing out on the massive pay outs from medicare they have been receiving so in order to reclaim the loss of income they need to raise their patient numbers. Enter the new midwives bill; OB's can control what midwives do and probably claim for the work they do (if in fact they do work with midwives) and women can birth at home in a "collaborative care arrangement".

The Dictation test of the birthing woman will include: No previous c/s, no breech, no multiples, no babies born prior to 37 weeks nor after 42 weeks, no GBS, no GD, no BMI over 25 or under 20. You will be classed as high risk until you can jump through every hoop to prove you are not. There is no choice in which antenatal test you want and which you don't, if you can't prove you are low risk who can anyone trust you to birth your baby.

It will never be illegal to birth your baby at home, but through the processes of BDM it will be almost impossible to do it without some sort of legal implication.

Since when is it ok for the government to decide how, when and where a woman uses her vagina? This is a serious breach of human rights, just like the dictation test.

Today I am ashamed to call myself Australian!

Claire Aslangul

Thank-you Claire, for giving putting the rage, despair and disappointment many Australian families are feeling presently.

The Day Independent Midwifery Died

It is a very sad day for women, babies and families in Australia. The rich and powerful obstetric lobby has had another victory and turned the powers that be in this country have turned a blind eye to the medical evidence that homebirth is safe. The Senate has recommended that the health practitioner bills 2009 be passed. This is the bill which gives doctors veto power over midwives, enabling doctors to determine who can and can't have a homebirth. For more about this bill see here.

From now on Australian women who want the independent midwifery model of care during pregnancy and birth will have to board an international flight. This island belongs to obstetricians.

For more about the Senate report see here.