Banning Home Births: The Next Wave of Reproductive Control?

There are a number of reasons that a pregnant person may choose to give birth with a midwife and at home rather than in a hospital or birth center. Some choose a home birth in order to remain more in control of the birth experience, believing that hospital births can be pushed too rapidly towards medical interventions like induction and c-sections. Others want to be able to feel more comfortable, conducting the entire labor in one convenient and familiar place, with the added benefit of moving straight to real life after the birth is complete. Even finances can play a role, as the average hospital birth grows more and more expensive even with insurance.

For many, an assisted home birth with a qualified midwife poses no more risk than a standard uncomplicated hospital labor and delivery. Yet there is a growing movement to regulate both midwives and home births, just like many other issues in reproductive health care, using the rationale that potential life always outranks the desires or beliefs of the person carrying that pregnancy, and that the pregnant person is not capable of making fully informed decisions about her own medical health.

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