I'll be meeting, lobbying, rallying, I'm not quite sure all what yet, but on behalf of passage of a Midwifery Licensure Bill this upcoming week. Lobbying Day is Wednesday at the Statehouse. I'll look forward to bumping into half of the state's lawyers.
As regards the bill, homebirth midwifery is illegal here in Indiana, with exceptions made for the Amish and a few others. My daughter Isabel was born here at home, illegally. I support the right to choose where to have your child, and in whose care. We wanted and had a natural, drug-free birth. If there had been complications, we would have been off to the hospital.
Isabel on her first birthday last June, with all of us re-taking our places at the time of her birth, on the back porch.It's unusal, really. Rarely will you see a group of professionals come forward to the state and say, 'license and regulate us', but that's what Indiana's direct entry midwives are asking for. I generally oppose licensure and regulation in most things, but in order to legally exist and practice their medical art, this is what they need.
3 comments:
Boo. Why, Mike? Why not lobby to get the existing law repealed, instead? Licensing it will only increase the prices and decrease the availability, just like with the health care industry.
Nobody would give them time of day. Nobody will sponsor a repeal law. But they do have a sponsor for a legitimizing bill.
Unfortunately, we are so far from a libertarian ideal here that the best that can happen short term is to make their endeavors legal. From there we can take on the whole process of licensure. At this point, equal playing fields mean jumping into a system I find far less than perfect. The alternative is continuing to practice as would-be felons. These professionals are tired of that.
I look at it as a parallel to those libertarians who call for regulation of marijuana. First step, legalization. Second step, elimination of bureaucratization of sale. See?
I suppose. Lately I've begun to wonder how realistic any of those endeavors are, though.
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