Standing up for our right to choose

[Ceres]

There is something that has been making me very angry this week. I am furious that there are homebirth advocates using freebirth to illustrate why homebirth should be publically funded. There are some homebirth advocates publically running down freebirth as a legitimate choice, in order to further their own agenda in relation to the maternity services review.
I think they have utterly missed the point.
It is not for anyone except the birthing mother to decide where, how and with whom she wants to birth.

Whether or not freebirth is a choice you would make is largely irrelevent when we are fighting for the right to make this choice for ourselves.
We need to stand up not only for our own choices, but for the choices of all women.

OUR BODIES - OUR CHOICES

We need to stand together with solidarity and fight for this!
It's not about what you think is safe or what you would choose, it's about the right of each individual to make this choice for themselves without fear of persecution.

[Wilhelmina]

Could not agree more. Lith made a point about how it is unfair that she supports people who would not support her. Maybe you can say it again Lith, as you said it perfectly.

I am so sick of hearing that others can understand that I freebirthed when there were not midwives. Yet I am reckless and dangerous for freebirthing again, for our next babe, even though there were midives in my area.

Here's a thought. How about YOU ASK ME about my birth journey, instead of ASSuming.

[Mama_Kaz]

Totally agree

[cyclista]

spot on Ceres.

Whether or not you agree with a womans choice should be irrelevant. This may sometimes be a struggle, but it is imperative to support a woman, WHICHEVER way she chooses to birth.

[Dakini]

What I find really intriguing (but not too hard to answer) with the right to chose stuff is the minimisation of the risks of c/sections as a birthing option. So everyone is ALWAYS so careful to state that they support women and their right to chose a c/section but no one is running screaming to the newspapers or writing op ed pieces on the increased risks associated with that.

So why is the choice to risk yourself and your child in one manner supported and condoned, versus the current vilification of women to homebirth and freebirth and hence increase themselves to supposed risks?

[The Sibyl]

Absolutely. I keep reading all the arguments about risks, statistics, safety - it doesn't matter! My body, my choice!

But people don't get it. People are all for pretending they believe women have a right to bodily autonomy, but once she's pregnant their cover is blown. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

[Ishtar]

I couldn't agree more either we are the ones standing up supporting all women for their choices/decisions yet the ones being made examples of and the past couple of weeks and this week in particular I am fucking over it...

My motto to this has been (though not strictly mine )

United we Stand, Divided we Fall

[Ilithyia]

Thanks for this thread!

This is what I wrote about it the other day:

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Divide and Concquer: Pitting Homebirthers Against Freebirthers

An article was published in an Australian newspaper yesterday stating that four babies have died at homebirths in the past nine months. Let's put aside, for a moment, that the article didn't publish the number of babies who have died in hospital during that period, that when a baby dies at homebirth it is presumed to be avoidable and when a baby dies at hospital is is assumed there was nothing that could have been done to save him or her, let's also ignore the abhorrent fact that this article singled out one grieving mother to be the target of all attacks against homebirth, and let's forget for a moment that the article in question made reference to a study which attests to the unsafe nature of homebirth that is twenty years outdated and was not a study of planned homebirths at all, but a study of unplanned "births before arrival", and let us also forget for a moment that the same article failed to make mention of any of the many medical studies attesting to the safety of planned homebirth attended by a midwife (one study which is only four years old).


Instead, let's focus on the fact that the article did not distinguish between homebirth and freebirth. Why focus on this one aspect? Because this is the aspect that some homebirthers have highlighted on their own blogs, or in disucssions on birth forums across Australia. But mostly, because this aspect is the one that has the potential to best serve the opponents of all homebirths.

On the same day as the newspaper article was published one blogger wrote a piece "Homebirthing Vs Freebirthing: There is a Difference", the title in itself pitting two groups of homebirthing women against each other. Ultimately this piece was written as an attack on one group of consumers and their community. In the article she refers to women who freebirth as "radical fringe-dwellers" and concludes that "Freebirthers who actively shun medical assistance for their own selfish ideological positions, however, don’t help anyone. Least of all their babies."

The author's point is this; don't hate all homebirthers, just the freebirthers, women who homebirth with a midwife present are normal mothers who deserve respect, but freebirthers are members of a crazy cult and feel free to disrespect them (where then, I wonder, does this leave the women who had planned midwife attended homebirths but the midwife didn't make it in time?).

What this author fails to realise (in addition to the fact that freebirthers don't actively shun medical assistance or choose to freebirth because of ideology) is that this line of argument makes her, her own worst enemy (if she was hoping to improve the situation for women who homebirth with a midwife). I am reminded of a reworked poem on Empowering Birth Blog:

First they came for the unassisted birthers,

but I did not speak out, because I do not free-birth.

Then they came for those who birth at home with lay midwives,

but I would would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a lay midwife.

Then they came for those who birthed with Certified Professional Midwives,

and I would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a CPM.

And then they came for those who birthed in birth centers and with Certified Nurse Midwives,

but I would not speak out because I would not have a birth in a birth center or with a CNM.

And then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.


When the freedom of one group is under attacked, freedom for all is attacked. This is why when the latest maternity services review recommended effectively making independent midwifery illegal (leaving women who want to birth at home with freebirth or nothing) freebirthers rushed to aid their fellow homebirthers, despite the fact that they don't hire independent midwives!

Homebirthers and freebirthers are not enemies. Nor are hospital birthers and homebirthers. We are all women navigating a system that we did not create, that was not created for our convenience, but for the convenience of care-providers, and we are all trying to make the best decisions for our own health and the health of our babies. To assume otherwise is to be the real fool in all this. Most of all, to pit yourself against another group of women who birth at home is to do the bidding of homebirths' enemies; dividing before concquering.

and

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Sometimes I Forget That Not Everyone Has A Degree In Political Science

Things that seem so obvious to me don't make any sense to others. One day in conversation I mentioned that birth is a political issue and the person I was talking to turned into a kettle on the boil, whistling hysterically, steam shooting out her ears, (well maybe not exactly like that, but the point is she did not see how birth is political).


That some choices are deemed acceptable and others are not is political. Politics is about power.
In the case of birth:
Who has the power to deem what is acceptable and what is not?
Who deems what is affordable and what is not?
Who deems what is safe and what is not?

Birth in this culture is incredibly political, particularly when it comes to homebirth and freebirth. It's made even more political by the fact that care-providers make money from birth and from certain kinds of birth (in most cases the more interventions done, the more money the institution and the care-provider get from the government, or in private health situations they get from the patient's themselves and their insurers), institutions like hospitals and birth centres make money from women choosing to birth there. Midwives make (very little) money from women hiring them to attend their homebirths.

Lately there's been a lot of talk of what is acceptable and what should be acceptable. I keep hearing this line "but where do you draw the line?" in regard to birth choices and what women should be "allowed" to choose for their bodies and their babies. That people are quick to question "where do you draw the line?" without asking "WHO will draw this line" concerns me greatly.

There has been talk of legislating against freebirth, and it's only been a couple of weeks since the Australian Government's Maternity Services Review publisiced that it will effectively make homebirthing with an independent midwife illegal next year. What really astounds me is that some of the people suggesting that the line should be drawn against freebirth are the same people outraged that their choice to homebirth with a midwife is being taken from them. Hypocrisy much?

What I find even more interesting is that freebirthers, such as myself, took to fighting for the rights of those who homebirth with a midwife, when the review released it's recommendations, even though it doesn't directly effect us. Weeks later we learn who our real friends are as others work to distance themselves from us after poorly written reports and opinion pieces are published in the paper about freebirthers and babies dying at homebirths.

A background in political science would help these people understand that "drawing a line" against one group only paves the way for power-holders to draw more lines against other groups in the future. When the freedom of one group is threatened, freedom for everyone is threatened. We were supposed to have learned this lesson from the 20th Century, but we didn't. As Kat, the brilliant author of Empowering Birth Blog shares:

In my former life, I was a Ph.D. student (I left indefinitely during my first pregnancy) and an organizer for social justice at the Jewish Council of Urban Affairs in Chicago. Much of my work centered around housing issues, specifically housing for the poorest of the poor, or public housing. Few were interested in becoming intimately involved with the dwellers of Chicago's severely neglected, rat and crime infested high-rises where families struggled to survive. I shared the poem below with those hesitant to get involved. I think it is an important one to read whenever we think that an issue is not MY issue. Whether we decide to birth at home or in a hospital, with or without an epidural, assisted or unassisted, birth choice is an issue that touches us all, women and men.
First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

You might incorrectly assume that this is a poem about Nazi Germany and nothing else. You might wrongly assume that this poem doesn't apply to any other issues. And you might wrongly assume that it is offensive and anti-semetic to use this poem in any other case aside from the Nazi Germany case. This is a poem about freedom, humanity and respect for others. Kat understood this and went on to write:

If I rewrote the poem, it would go something like this:
First they came for the unassisted birthers,
but I did not speak out, because I do not free-birth.
Then they came for those who birth at home with lay midwives,
but I would would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a lay midwife.
Then they came for those who birthed with Certified Professional Midwives,
and I would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a CPM.
And then they came for those who birthed in birth centers and with Certified Nurse Midwives,
but I would not speak out because I would not have a birth in a birth center or with a CNM.
And then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

When you sit in your own box watching silently as the freedoms of others become restricted, or worse still, you actively assist in the restriction of those people's freedom, you forget that at some point it may be you whose freedom is being restricted.

At this point all talk is about homebirths (with or without a midwife present), it won't always be, and it hasn't always been. Often the subject of the moment is whether women in hospitals should be allowed to refuse medical interventions, whether women should be allowed to have elective caesareans, whether they should be allowed to try to vaginally birth after caesarean or with a breech baby.

Before you start deciding for yourself where you think other women should give birth and who should attend them and how they should give birth, pause and reflect. Better yet, read some Orwell and some Huxley and take a look at the dystopia you're actively creating!

ETA: on a totally unsophisticated note, from one of my favourite movies:

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You don't need a degree in political science to appreciate that

[Zosha]

Admittedly, I haven't been reading much of the media this week. It's just been too gross. But which homebirth advocates have been publicly running down freebirth as a legitimate choice? I don't think I've seen that. I have seen people saying that women shouldn't be forced to freebirth due to lack of midwives, but has anyone actually poo-poohed women who choose freebirth off their own back?

[Ceres]

Thankyou for posting that Ilithyia.