Our beautiful State of Oregon has a long history of parents having the freedom to hire the birth attendant of their choice and for that person to serve them for without fear of prosecution. Oregon has been held up as one of the best states for home birth and midwifery. We are blessed with a large variety of midwives compared to other states, and laws that allow the birthing mother to decide who is qualified to attend her birth.
That freedom is at risk!
A bill has been introduced to the Oregon House Health Committee that would criminalize the serving of women in pregnancy, birth and postpartum unless licensed by the state. This bill gives the state the power to determine who is eligible to be licensed, who is eligible to attend births as a student, who can assist, advise at or give care during labor and birth, who is eligible to have an attended home birth and who may or may not be exempt from this far reaching and broadly written bill.
Who do you want deciding where, how and with whom you can birth your babies?
It's time to act now. Let's show the House Health Committee that Oregon parents do not support this bill, that we are happy with the current laws that protect the mother's right to choose her own attendant, and that birth belongs to the family and not the state.
Who is at Risk?
Parents
Parents that want to plan the birth of their child in the place and manner that is best for them, with the attendant of their choice would face limited birthing options. This includes every family in Oregon, no matter what their birth choices are. When the state limits who can legally assist a woman in labor, they limit every woman's birthing options. If every birth attendant is limited by practice protocols set by the state, some women, including VBAC, twins, breech, and post-date moms, could be forced to birth in a hospital, find a person willing to risk their own freedom to help them, or give birth with no birth attendant.
If midwifery licensure became mandatory, birthing women would be at the mercy of the state to determine who is allowed to have a midwife-attended home birth. Standards of practice that limit who and how a midwife may serve are likely to become more and more narrow. Licensed midwives who have historically had broad scope of practice could lose the right attend women who have had previous cesareans, have breech babies, are pregnant with multiples, or go past their due date as well as other restrictions.
Birth Helpers
The second category includes any person who is not licensed by the state of Oregon that assists or gives advice to a birthing woman. This includes birth doulas, postpartum doulas, monitrices, midwives and anyone else involved in serving the birthing woman.
Because the bill defines a midwife as any person who provides advice or care to a woman during pregnancy, birth and postpartum, husbands, friends, sisters and mothers could also be prosecuted. The language of the bill is broad and gives the state wide and open-ended power to determine who may or may not be exempt from this law.
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