NEWS & EVENTS
How Did We Get Here?
Maternity Legislation 2010 -
By Sarah Mehmet with Yolande Williams, Registered Midwife
We’re always hearing about abuses of human rights in overseas countries, more often than not, Muslim ones. The oppression of women anywhere is loudly decried by Western nations and rightly so. Wars have been waged on a pretext of “liberating the women”. Burkha bans and the like are put in place. But what about women oppressed and robbed of their human rights here at home? With the passing of the new Maternity Legislation, we are seeing it made official: the loss of birthing women’s choice concerning their own bodies and babies.
How did this happen?
The ground work was started in the lead up to the 2007 election by the then Shadow Minister for Health, Nicola Roxan. As part of the Labour party’s election promises, midwives and homebirth mothers from all over the country met with Roxan to discuss their “wish list” for maternity services. At these meetings Roxan was gathering information under the guise of ensuring “better” choices for mothers. She gave the impression she respected all women’s right to choose. Women and midwives all identified the want for Medicare eligibility for homebirth and access to indemnity insurance for homebirth midwives.
In June 2009 came the draft bill: the Health Legislation Amendment (midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009 and two related bills.
Basically the new laws would prevent independent homebirth midwives from being registered if they could not get the public indemnity insurance which they are prevented from getting anyway, because insurers consider them too small a pool to bother with. The idea was to ban homebirth through the back door and protect a powerful obstetric lobby.
This piece of legislation promoted two enquires which broke all records for submissions.
The first enquiry was in July 2009 the second was in September 2009 and the many
well thought out emotional submissions are available on the government website and
a matter of public record. The later enquiry received 993 submissions, 430 comment
letters and 900 form letters.
This legislation also saw 3000 mothers, babies and
midwives fly from all corners of Australia to Rally outside Parliament house in the
rain. They flew to protest the proposed removal of their right to chose where they
birth; who is present at their birth and what happens to them and their babies.
The day prior to the Rally in Canberra on Monday 7th of September, Roxan conceded an exemption for “eligible midwives” to continue providing care for women who wish to birth at home. Attempts to obtain clarification on “eligible midwife” from the minister’s office met with no answer. Eventually the definition of eligible midwife was released and centered on the requirement for the midwife to maintain a collaborative arrangement with an obstetrician.
These collaborative arrangements rely on the midwife maintaining the strict RANZCOG
guidelines by only providing service to “low risk” women, by following the stringent
list of exclusions. The upshot of this is that women wishing to have a vaginal birth
after cesarean, a breech or a twin birth at home, all of which can be successfully
attended at home by a midwife, would have little to no chance of birthing where and
how they want, and where they feel safe, thereby falling short of even World Health
Organisation recommendations for birthing women. The collaborative arrangement also
leaves the midwife in a precarious position as a professional, with the practice
of one professional being signed off by another of a different stream. The dominant
profession is also on the record as not being supportive of the model of care the
midwives wish to provide.
In a bid to seal public sympathies, a final media bout was initiated, just one in a long campaign against homebirth. Dealing the blows for the Australian Medical Association was president Dr Andrew Pesche, obstetrician, who misrepresented the results of a recent study on homebirth in Australia to declare it unsafe, although the wide body of literature confirms it as safe, if not safer, than hospital birth. It’s good enough for New Zealand and Great Britain. In Holland, 30% of births occur at home with great outcomes, midwifery care is the norm and you have to pay to see an obstetrician unless you actually have a medical problem. But this arrangement is not to be for Australian families.
The health system enthusiastically touts “informed consent” at every opportunity except in this case it seems. Women cannot be trusted by our government to choose a birthing option for themselves.
Copyright © 2010 Queensland Muslim Times. All Rights Reserved.
