http://janetfraser.id.au/blog/2012/0...h-was-illegal/

This may surprise you all but I sometimes wish homebirth was illegal.*

Recently I saw a kind woman asking online what would be nice in a basket for her friend due to have her babe at home in the near future. There were lots of heartfelt suggestions from massage vouchers to biscuits which can be eaten one handed while breastfeeding a newborn. My first thought, because I tend to run away at the metaphorical mouth, was human rights. I’d like a basket of human rights, please. Gift wrapped? No no, just the same as everyone else’s would do, thanks. I don’t want a plastic bag, I brought my own calico number with a political statement on the side. But then I thought, actually what we need isn’t only human rights, what we need is an enemy that is honest about their actions. Why don’t they just make it a crime to birth at home? That’s what everyone wants, it would make it so easy to prosecute us all. Send the midwives to prison. Take the children. Give the women years of community service or minimum security gaol. Re-educate partners to their roles in preventing women’s exercising of their human rights. Bang. Done. No more mealy mouthed “expanding choices” double plus good speak, just a refreshing burst of honesty: birth outside of a hospital and we will put you in gaol. Simple.


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Continues at the link above.