Spanish lawyers have recently filed four claims against Spain related to the violations of their clients’ human rights in childbirth–and these women’s stories sound very familiar to advocates all around the globe.
“I interrupted and said ‘she said stop, take your hand out of her vagina right now, she said stop!’”
Alabama’s abortion amendment broadly extends state and medical authority over every stage of pregnancy and birth, potentially including how and where women give birth.
“That doesn’t make sense, for her to wait until after she’s abused to call me. If she’s really worried about it, I can meet her at the hospital as her doula, and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
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.
The concept of “implied consent” is sometimes mischaracterized by hospitals to justify violations of women’s dignity and rights in childbirth.