Childbirth Rights Rally - Melbourne 27th June 2013
Childbirth Rights Rally
“because childbirth rights are human rights”
When: Thursday
27th June 2013 10.00 – 11.30am
Where: The Women's Hospital cnr Grattan St & Flemington Rd Parkville 3052
What: A peaceful gathering of people holding placards with messages demanding women's right to choice in childbirth.
Why: Medical interventions in childbirth are at record highs with no concurrent gains in safety for mothers and babies. Many women report feeling abused and disrespected in their experience of maternity care. They feel disempowered rather than empowered by their birth experience.
It is time that we claim back our own power in childbirth.
Our right to informed consent and informed refusal.
Our bodies, our babies, our right to decide.
Please bring you own placards, T shirts, baby's onesies etc. emblazoned with your message.
Suggestions for slogans (or make up your own):
Childbirth Rights are Human Rights
Why are 1 in 3 women being “delivered” by C/S?
Question your induction
My consent is not my consent if you coerce me to give it
My body, my baby, my birth
Informed consent and informed refusal
Know your options
Your body, your way
Our bodies, our babies, our rights
Birth matters
My baby's experience of birth matters
Women take back birth
Our bodies, our babies, our right to decide
Humanise birth
My current favourite: "Uppity woman and proud"
Please note: We will meet in front of the main entrance near the "The Women's Sculpture". This area is a public thoroughfare and as such we need to keep a clear pathway for pedestrians ie. by not blocking the footpath.
All are welcome including babies and children. Please be aware that the area is a high traffic area.
More information:
Childbirth rights are human rights. Childbirth rights must be situated within the full spectrum of reproductive rights along with other issues affecting women's lives and right to bodily autonomy including access to contraception, sexual health and education services, and safe abortion. Contemporary feminist discourse has largely ignored birth as a worthy focus of women's rights' advocacy. The choice whether to become pregnant, to end a pregnancy or to continue a pregnancy is as important as a woman's choice of how, where and with whom she gives birth.
Childbirth in the industrialised world is in crisis. One in three birthing woman now have their babies “delivered” by caesarean section- that is, via major abdominal surgery. 50% of birthing women have their labours induced or augmented with synthetic hormones. Women report having felt coerced through the use of fear based language to consent to procedures and interventions that they would not otherwise have chosen. Many women, rather than feeling empowered through their experience of giving birth are left to cope, or not, with the effects of physical and emotional trauma. In non-western countries, many women die in childbirth as a result of the effects of poverty- malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, disease and lack of access to health care. Maternal mortality due to these causes has been greatly reduced in the western world. Why then do we have a childbirth culture saturated in fear? A culture that does not trust women to make their own informed choices about their bodies and their babies.
Globally there is a reported rise in cases where women are facing legal action where they are deemed to be acting against the “rights” of their foetus. Midwives and doctors who support women in their informed decision making and right to bodily autonomy are being similarly persecuted. The misuse of the medico-legal complex exerts control over women's bodies and lives. Obstetric practice is predicated by the risk averse policies of insurance corporation underwriters rather than by good evidence with judicious use of technology where true need exists. The maternity care system is failing women as it has it's trust in technocracy rather than in the birthing woman.
It is time that we claim back our own power in childbirth.
The way in which we are born and the way we give birth has major implications for women's and babies' future health and for the future of mother earth.
Organised by Campaign for Women's Reproductive Rights. CWRR is a group in Victoria, Australia that seeks to preserve and extend the rights of women to exercise choice in their reproductive decisions.
