A year ago I wrote a candid response to the registration crisis midwives were facing as the national registration of health professionals legislation made the rounds of each State. I am sad to say that some of the somewhat satirical comments I made have now started to eventuate. This should be shocking and horrifying to anyone who values the principles of autonomy and self-determination. You now no longer have the ultimate say in what happens to your body if you choose care by a registered health professional. Your choices may be vetoed by a medical gatekeeper. Women, it seems, have less right to self-determination in birth than horses.
Women who want to home birth are now worse off than ever before. There have been recent reports in the media about women being refused prescriptions for syntocinon by midwife-wary GPs. The witch hunt is in full swing with midwives being reported left, right and centre and soon the term ‘midwife’ will only openly be used in the halls of power, where midwifery staff can be controlled and where women’s rights to self determination are vastly eroded. Pretty soon the tales about home born babies will be hushed up and a cone of silence will encase those who dare to choose this option. Women will have to join secret birthing societies in order to get the information they need to hire an underground midwife to support them so they can have, what they consider to be, a safe birth and they won’t be able to refer to these birth helpers as midwives. Doing so could mean prosecution, so instead they’ll say they were birthing unassisted with partners and “friends”. Midwives will be unable to accompany women to hospital should they need to transfer and adequate consultation with medical professionals will become impossible. Yes, the situation is dire indeed.
In the wake of all of this, I have chosen to not to have another baby. It is clear to me that none of my choices will be respected in the system. I wouldn’t be “allowed” to even use water for pain relief because of my two previous caesareans (even though I birthed my last baby naturally). I also don’t feel comfortable putting a midwife in the position of supporting me when each previous pregnancy involved complications that put me in the “high risk” category, despite the normalcy of my pregnancies in reality. I feel like my only choice is to birth unassisted at home but I’m not willing to do that either. So, that’s, that. No more babies for me.
I am extremely angry that my personal life and our family choices have been interfered with by the state to such an extent, that I no longer feel that Australia is a democracy in the true sense of the word. When a government can dictate to you that you cannot choose for a normal bodily function to happen in the comfort and safety of your own home, then that is not freedom or self determination.
The thing I find really disturbing is that there are a plethora of so-called experts who support what the government is doing and who think it is okay to deprive women of their liberty. Some have even called for homebirth to be made illegal. Excuse me? Following that reasoning, we should also make patient-choice caesareans illegal and patient-choice inductions illegal. Not that I want to compare homebirth to medical procedures but you get my drift. If they are going to control once choice, why not control them all!
So what do we do now? I have no doubt it is going to be a rough road ahead for both women and midwives who are passionate about choice in childbirth but we need to keep telling our stories, the good stories about birth. If our stories die, so will home birth.
