These words came out of a growing sense of frustration that American leadership is so quick to blame women for what are actually systemic problems in maternity care.
This case of birth monopoly is about the long-term legal prosecution of Agnes Gereb, the trailblazing Hungarian obstetrician who chose to become a midwife almost 20 years into her career so that she could support women on their own terms.
Birth plans are women being smarter than hospitals when hospitals fail to follow humane, science-based practices. That they have to be written down and pre-approved by a doctor is evidence of how little women’s decisions in birth matter.
Sen. Vivian Davis Figures drops a truth bomb in the Alabama legislature: “Who do you think birthed your ancestors. Uneducated slaves, ok? They were midwives.”
This short Birth Monopoly video looks at the reality families face in a state where, in many ways, hospitals have more control over birth than women do.
