Pushing for Midwives: Homebirth Mothers and the Reproductive Rights Movement

Access to professional midwifery care is a basic reproductive right that women in the United States have long been denied. Today American midwives are growing in numbers and in or gan i za tion al and legal strength. Their excellent outcomes and women’s high levels of satisfaction with their care are placing increasing pressure on the health care system to more fully incorporate them, but the battle to make midwifery care readily available to all women is far from won. [Certifi ed nurse midwives] around the country all too often fi nd themselves pushed out of practice by physicians seeking to eliminate the competition, and [directentry midwives] are still fi ghting in many states for the right to practice legally and under regulations that do not erode their autonomy. It is to be hoped that . . . American women will be able to reclaim their basic reproductive right to midwifery care. —Deborah Cordero Fiedler and Robbie DavisFloyd, “Midwifery as a Reproductive Right”