Bridging Support: Birth Workers and Pro-Choice Advocates on Personhood
I have been sitting in an uncomfortable place politically with my birth work lately. I am a doula, childbirth educator, and student midwife. I came into birth work through a background in human rights law. Before deciding to venture into the world of birth support, I had worked with refugees and writing amicas curae briefs for non-profits. While working with these NGOs and doing my undergraduate political research, it was usually easier to vilify obvious villians and rally support for fundraising and interdisiplinary unification. With birth advocacy and the fight for reproductive rights for women in the U.S. and abroad, the lines between villian and victim are a lot fuzzier.
Though being a birth attendant who operates outside of the traditional hospital paradigmn is in it’s own right a radical profession here in America, the clearest way to dive into the world of radical birth work is to be a full spectrum doula—or birth worker who also assists women in abortions. See, the bridge between birth support and reproductive justice advocacy is not as short as you’d imagine.
And both parties are worse off for it.
My Grandfather was a strict Catholic. Of his few possesions, he owned framed portraits of Jesus, JFK, and The Pope, which hung as the Holy Trinity of Irish Catholic pride in his Philadelphia home. Early on in my doula career, I was sitting at the dining room table with my grandparents and a few other family members, fielding questions about my training and work over whiskey and potato rolls. I told my aunt an interesting statistic that I had learned—that nearly 30,000 women give birth everyday—to which my grandfather (a man of very few words) chimed in, “And how many of those are ABORTED.” None. that was irrelevant. He and the other table panelists chimed in with a myriad of completely false stereotypes about birth and abortion and who gets abortions and why they shouldn’t happen and out of exhaustion, I changed the subject.
My Grandfather was a very meaningful part of my upbringing. I love him deeply and mourn his passing daily. However, there is a weight that is lifted off my shoulder knowing he is gone. I have wanted to be an abortion doula, and as a future midwife, hopefully an abortion provider, since I started down this path 5 years ago. I believe it is a fundemental compontent of supporting women in their reproductive health. When I was traveling to Zambia with a small non-profit to work in a refugee settlement, he assumed (falsely) that I would be going there to perform abortions and didn’t speak to me for months. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t imagine trying to tell him that my job was to sit at the bedside of women undergoing abortions to hold their hands and tell them that everything was going to be okay.
I’ve moved to a smallish town in Colorado with a strong and supportive birth community that utilizes hospital and out of hospital midwives and runs smoothly. Our birth outcomes are better than most parts of the U.S. and our out of hospital birth rate is higher, too. One of the reasons for this is a large religiously conservative community in the neighboring ranching areas. I feel the same hesitations to take on the role of abortion supporter and provider and be an open advocate for women’s choices as I’ve had for many years with my conservative family members. I am afraid of being shunned. I am afraid of loosing business. I am afraid to be openly advocating for choice and causing issues in our divided Colorado community.
Our Planned Parenthood performs up to 18 abortions a week. Like all other Planned Parenthood’s, they also provide a wealth of services including Pap smears, sex education, counseling, breast exams, and the like. They have no abortion doulas and on their busy surgery days, there are extensive periods of time where women waiting to go through an intimidating and deeply personal experience are left alone. This is no fault of theirs, it’s the nature of the beast, but we could certainly use some doula-type support in this area. I’ve thought a great deal about starting an abortion doula program here in town. There are several newer doulas here who could use the experience and women who could use the support. I’m afraid, however, of being the one to charge forward as someone who wants to be a home birth practioner here in the near future.
Why are so many women made to cower at the idea of supporting choice in all paradigms? Why are we made to be ashamed of speaking out, whether it be in the birth room or when demanding the choice to do what we want with our bodies?
Unfortunately, in many ways, the reproductive advocacy community is split between those who work in birth support and those who are advocating for the right to terminate a pregnancy.
When it comes down to it, the major issues are largely the same. You may not know this if you aren’t a birth worker or havent’ had a baby in the recent past, but there is a maternal health crisis in the U.S. and it’s not restricted to one area or one community of people. Along with sweeping restrictions on access to abortions across the country, there has been a rise in maternal deaths in the past decade—making the United States the only developed country to not have a reduction in deaths over the same period. We’ve seen increasing restrictions on free standing birth centers, causing some of the nation’s oldest and most trusted birth centers with far better birth outcomes for mama and baby than the national standard forced to close their doors in recent months. Campaigns like Improving Birth’s #birthmatters have highlighted the common practices of ignoring evidence and restricting women’s options to safe birth practices across the country.
The restriction of options in termination and birth are parallel in many ways. The politicising of women’s bodies has had uniform effects of limiting safe options and alternatives as well as shaming and harming women for their choices in both areas. Incidents such as the recent case of Florida mother, Jennifer Goodall, who was threatened with a forced cesarean or to have her child sent to childwelfare services for wanting to attempt a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) are not isolanted incidences.
The issue of “personhood,” and the appointing of lawyers for unborn fetuses to advocate for their rights against the women who bear them and their rights is affecting women’s reproductive rights on so many levels, the Venn diagram is starting to resemble a large brown blob of undue restriction. The ferver in which this issue is debated amongst Conservative party members, largely on the issue of abortion, but reaching at times into the realm of out of hospital birth, is reaching an obsessive tipping point, with either scenerio having an equally potential chance of coming to fruition. Here in Colorado, the issue of “personhood” has been unrelenting leading up to the November Senate race between incumbant Sen. Mark Udall and Republican Representative, now Senate candidate, Cory Gardner. The pro-life, pro-personhood organization has it’s headquarters here in Denver and they have been dominating the discussion of reproductive rights not just in the Colorado race, but in mid-term races all over the country.
"What Personhood USA wants is culture change. Specifically, they want a culture where fertilized eggs are paramount, without exceptions, and anyone who stands in their way—including the woman carrying an embryo or fetus—is subject to the criminal code (CNN October 2014)." They were the champions of the Hobby Lobby decision which upheld the scientifically unfounded standards of abortion from standard birth control in the highest court in the land. Here, the idea that the woman carrying a fetus or gestating baby is privvy to the politics of her care providers and state representatives was legally bound. Don’t think this has ramifications for women carrying their babies to term in hopes of a safe delivery and a lifetime of happy parenting? Think again.
Have a miscarriage that seems suspicious to conservatives? You might be prosecuted.
Want a home birth in certain states? Your fetus might have it’s own legal counsel and you may have your baby carted off by child protective services immediately after delivery.
Refuse a forced cesarean or induction for “postdateism”, VBAC attempts, breech presenting baby, twins, or other doctor proscribed reason? Not only will the hospital appoint a lawyer to represent your fetus as separate from you, but you may be handcuffed, forced to undergo surgery, be deemed unfit as a guardian, and have your baby taken away.
In many of these cases, the emphasis for precedence in court is on Roe v. Wade.
Think these cases are exaggerated? Any simple Google search will prove otherwise. Step into the world of doula or midwife and you’ll be faced with even more cases of a unborn babies rights trumping that of the woman carrying it. These are not cases that have popped up out of the blue. These are directly related to the pro-life and personhood debates dominating the political landscape. They are also scarring providers into driving the national cearean rate up over 33% (that’s 1 in 3 delieveries ending in major abdominal surgery) and other potentially unnecessary interventions following suit.
Where, then, are the protesters for birth options amongst the women and men marching in front of the White House for reproductive rights? Why aren’t we more of a unified front in these campaigns? The issues of feminism cross clearly over the boundaries of the rights to concieve or not, to terminate or continue, to birth at home or at a hospital according to the best available evidence. If birth advocates are to continue to be able to practice free of harassment from falsely imagined principles of care, we must get on the same page about the argument for bodily autonomy as a whole. When simply having a uterus barrs you from equal pay, equal opportunity, equal options, and a right to do with your body what you want, the fight to change the political and cultural understanding of informed choice, access, and bodily autonomy should be fought by women on either side of the reproductive health spectrum. We should be supporting one another’s causes as they so closely effect the other’s.
It is time birth workers stand with pickets against Admendment 67 in Colorado, Measure 1 in North Dakota, Amendment 1 in Tennessee, and continue to rally against proposed measures in states like Texas and Mississippi where laws against choice have been the most restrictive. It is also time that reproductive choice advocates acknowledge the issues facing women choosing to carry their babies to term when they reach out to the general population about how pro-life restrictions will hit them close to home. It is time we all focus on the broader picture of autonomy and create a culture that fully honors the choices women make for themselves and their babies.
