Rally in support of homebirthing, Byron Bay, 4th July, 2009
Image: © Jeff Dawson/Byron Echo

A Woman’s Right to Choose

From July next year, if an Australian woman chooses homebirth as her preferred option of maternity care, she is going to have a very hard time finding a midwife who would be willing to risk deregistration, disciplinary action and a $30,000 fine to care for her and her baby.

And this is all happening in Australia!!!! While the governments of other countries such as the Netherlands, New Zealand and England are encouraging of homebirth, we are going backwards, and our government is creating a situation where homebirth will become unlawful.

We all know that pregnancy and birth, for the most part, is a normal process of life. The federal and state governments acknowledge this in their own reports. But while they espouse the normality of birth they are unwilling to extend their support of normal uncomplicated birth to a space where it has the possibility of functioning freely and independently of a medical establishment.

Once again the interests of medical professionals is being placed at the centre of maternity care while women and their babies are sidelined!
You cannot promote any form of reformed maternity care system that excludes homebirth, because when you discriminate against the choices of one woman, you discriminate against us all and you negate a woman’s right to choose where, with whom and how she gives birth, and you deny that woman’s right to have access to safe and appropriate maternity care.
Disregarding the rights of women to birth at home is not good enough. It is not a problem that is going to go away. In fact, if homebirth is made illegal, the problem is just going to get bigger.

We are asking the government to solve this problem NOW. MIDWIVES MUST BE SUPPORTED IN ATTAINING PROFESSIONAL INDEMNIITY INSURANCE FOR HOMEBIRTH!

As women who make informed and safe choices for ourselves and for our babies; as women who are not comfortable with accepting the inadequate status quo, we say: ‘Take a stand for all women of Australia, be fearless in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge, take this last step and enact your duty of care to Australian women to provide us with the opportunity to choose to birth at home, safely and legally with a registered midwife’.

All of us as individuals have the capacity to effect change in the world.

Vicki-lee McAllister, Northern Rivers Maternity Action Group,
addressing rally in Railway Park, 4th July, 2009