Just Call Me A Criminal...

...because I homebirth.

My daughter was born on my kitchen floor. Deliberately. (Well, I would have preferred to do it in the nice, warm birth pool, but she had other ideas and came on like a freight train when she decided she was good and ready. She's stuck to that personality trait ever since.) While her big brother slept soundly in his bedroom mere metres away, my little girl shot into her fathers waiting hands, was placed immediately in my arms and on my skin, and less than an hour later, we were all tucked up in bed. You can read the gushy, euphoric full story here if you like. Birthing at home was a choice I made based on emotion, yes, but first and foremost, it was a choice made based on cold hard facts and irrefutable evidence. This is my child's life we're talking about; my life, too. Nothing less than the safest and the best path was the right path for us to walk. Please don't dismiss homebirth as something that only affects dreadlocked, hippy-dippy, patchouli-scented, sandal-wearing, mungbean-munching Others (although even if it did, I hope you'd still be outraged if those Other's rights were taken away). It affects me, and if it makes you feel less Other, you might as well know that I'm Ms Average. It could affect you someday, or your children, or your children's children. This is about women's bodily integrity, and that of their babies, too.

I'm not planning any more children, but if I did have them, they'd be born at home (barring a genuine medical reason necessitating Hospital) - legislation or no legislation - because that's where they and I are safest. Keep your laws off my body and my babies, Australian Government. If you choose not to, I choose to tell you to fuck right off.

In July 2010, independent midwifery and thus, homebirth, will become illegal. A $30,000 fine will be payable by any midwife breaching this legislation, and the woman who seeks to hire her. That's right. Wanna do your research, make evidence-based choices in the best interests of yourself and your baby, stay home, birth the way you want, and hire a skilled professional who is best for the job? You're an outlaw, and you're up for tens of thousands of dollars. Welcome to Australia.

This is a gross breach of human rights and a fucking imbecilic move in direct contravention of evidence supporting the safety of homebirth and the outcry of Australians demanding more access to it, not less.

RALLY FOR HOMEBIRTH
7 SEPTEMBER 2009
11.30am
CANBERRA
PARLIAMENT HOUSE

I'm basically inarticulate with rage and emotion, so I'll just link a couple of the myriad of well put together commentaries flying around the internet right now about this travesty:-

Hoyden About Town: Homebirth to Become Illegal in a Year
Hoyden About Town: Homebirth: What's the Crime?
Cas McCullough Blogs About the Banishment of Our Autonomy, Our Stories, and Our Folklore
Lisa Barrett, Independent SA Midwife (and all round legend) blogs: Exterminate

Read the facts. Dissect the insightful points from highly intelligent men and women. Watch the videos. Listen to the stories. And then turn up for the rally, either in Canberra, or on the steps of the Parliament house in your own town (all at the same date and time).

Let's make them listen.