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Monday, April 03, 2006

Ind. Law - Bloomington midwife's story makes the NY Times

"Prosecution of Midwife Casts Light on Home Births" is the title of a story in today's NY Times by law reporter Adam Liptak. The story, datelined Bloomington, Ind., begins with a description of a birth, then continues:

According to Indiana law, though, the midwife who assisted Ms. Hendrix-Petry, Mary Helen Ayres, committed a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison. Ms. Ayres was, according to the state, practicing medicine and midwifery without a license.

Doctors, legislators and prosecutors in Indiana and in the nine other states with laws prohibiting midwifery by people other than doctors and nurses say home births supervised by midwives present grave and unacceptable medical risks. Nurse-midwives in Indiana are permitted to deliver babies at home, but most work in hospitals.

Midwives see it differently. They say the ability of women to choose to give birth at home is under assault from a medical establishment dominated by men who, for reasons of money and status, resent a centuries-old tradition that long ago anticipated the concerns of modern feminism.

Chloe Hendrix-Petry's birth has not given rise to criminal charges, but a prosecution against another midwife, Jennifer Williams, is pending in Shelbyville, Ind. It was prompted by the death of a baby named Oliver Meredith that Ms. Williams delivered in June. But she is not charged with causing or contributing to Oliver's death.

Instead, to hear the county prosecutor tell it, the case against Ms. Williams is not unlike one against a trucker caught driving without a license.

"He may be doing an awfully fine job of driving his truck," the prosecutor, R. Kent Apsley, a trim, intense and direct man, said in his office in the basement of the Shelby County courthouse. "But the state requires him to go through training, have his license and be subject to review." * * *

Peggy Welch, a Democratic state representative in Bloomington, has introduced legislation in Indiana to recognize and regulate lay midwives. She said the issue boiled down to choice and safety.

"It is not illegal to have a home birth," Ms. Welch said, noting that about 1,000 Indiana families had their children at home each year. "But doctors and nurses are choosing not to do home births."

The current law, Ms. Welch said, drives midwives underground. "I don't want to have a midwife hesitate to take a woman to the hospital because she is afraid she will be arrested," she said.

Rep. Welch's bill, HB 1237, apparently was never scheduled for a hearing in the House committee - see the action list here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 3, 2006 06:23 PM
Posted to Indiana Law