Telling Stories , Shaping Lives : Media Representations of Midwifery Debates in Ontario and Quebec During the 1970 s , ‘ 80 s , and ‘ 90 s

Ontario and Quebec were the first two provinces to legalize midwifery, integrating the services into their respective healthcare systems. In both provinces, the pre-legislative periods were marked by intense debates between state-actors, medical health professionals, and midwifery supporters, debates which took place in discursive spaces which were shaped not only by the dominance of medical-scientific discourse, but also by the particular socio-political discourses of each province. How these debates played out in media is an important part of the construction of contemporary midwifery. Yet, although the literature on midwifery, especially the Ontario case, continues to flourish, no literature to date explores the role of the media as a key actor in shaping the debate. In this paper, we seek to address this gap by investigating the ways in which media representations aligned midwifery with broader provincial-level discourses, thereby constituting midwifery as a ‘policy problem’ requiring (particular forms of) state intervention. In so doing, we demonstrate how such representations, and the power relations implicated in them, legitimized the provincial state. * This research was funded by FQRSC. Stephanie Paterson is an assistant professor in the department of political science at Concordia University. Cherry Marshall recently received her Master of Arts degree from the department of political science at Concordia University. Correspondence should be directed to [email protected].