Anyone else in Idaho read this blog? We need your help!
Idaho Midwifery Bill:
This bill requires all practicing midwives in Idaho to either submit to a host of new regulations, licensing, and bureaucracy or go out of business. Currently, Idahoans have the freedom to decide who will provide care for them and their babies. If this bill passes, the politicians will decide which options are legal for you to choose from.
This mandatory licensure bill would:
1. Put 1/3 of the midwives out of business (10 have admitted this). Some of these midwives only do a couple of deliveries a year. They can’t afford licensure fees (up to $1,000 annually) and mandatory classes..
2. Drive away future midwives. A handful of ladies looking to become midwives in the next few years have admitted they would abandon pursuit.
3. Set up a whole new layer of unnecessary bureaucracy and hassle by creating a Board of Midwifery.
4. Make the practice of midwifery, without a license, a felony after two convictions.
5. Restrict midwives from making the best decisions in extenuating or emergency situations for their consumers.
To view the bill, follow the link below:
http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/legislation/2009/H0185Bookmark.htm
The bill has already passed the House unanimously. (It had no opposition, due to the fact that those few midwives pushing the bill kept the radical changes done to it under wraps from the rest of the midwives until after it passed the house.) Now a lot of midwives and consumers of midwifery are banding together to kill the bill. House Bill #185 will be in committee this Monday, March 16th at 3pm.
We need your help! Please contact all 9 members on the Senate Health & Welfare Committee by form letter and/or phone and let them know that you are opposed to House Bill #185 pertaining to midwifery.
Senator Patti Anne Lodge, (R) - Chair Home (208) 459-7158
Senator Joyce Broadsword, (R) - Vice Chair Home (208) 263-7735 Bus (208) 263-3250
Senator Denton Darrington, (R) Home (208) 654-2712
Senator John McGee, (R) Home (208) 459-8404 Bus (208) 455-3950
Senator Charles Coiner, (R) Home: (208) 734-1675 Business: (208) 423-4015
Senator James Hammond, (R) Home: (208) 773-5748
Senator Melinda Smyser, (R) Home (208) 722-6658
Senator Nicole LeFavour, (D) Home (208) 724-0468 Bus (208) 724-0468
Senator Les Bock, (D) Bus (208) 319-3526
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4 comments:
I do believe midwives should be licensed. This is a way to protect women from situations where the midwife professes to know more or have more abilities than truthful. Moderation helps to keep negligent accidents and unfortunate mistakes at bay. I love the idea of midwifery, however. I'm looking into that option when I get preggo with baby #4.
Unfortunately this bill includes much more than just that. It would prohibit midwives from attending a birth before 38 weeks and after 42 weeks. (Daniel was 42w 3 days) or if the mother has a history of "multiple gestation". It also restricts midwife attendance based on your BMI. My BMI has nothing to do with my ability to birth my child. I do not want the state of Idaho thus restricting my birthing choices and freedoms.
Way to stay up on issues, Maria! I'd have never expected it of you when we met 9 years ago. I do/did not talk about my personal leanings over such issues much because I simply assume that my words fall on deaf ears: no one wants to listen because no one believes there is a problem or that, in my particular circumstances, my opinion would be valid enough to consider. For example, my brother and sister-in-law think I shouldn't bother to have an opinion on homeschooling or bother doing any research about it because I have no children. What?!?!
I am all for keeping the rights and choices of people directly where they belong--in the hands of the people living the life. For too long our government has decided, based on interests of lobbyists or businesses or whatever, that they know what is best for us, their poor ignorant serfs, I mean constituents. I have an opinion on everything which crosses my mind, even if that opinion is to do more research before committing to a position. Neither people nor society will self-destruct if the decision-making power is left up to an individual. It may be that not everyone will make the same decision, or that mistakes will not be made, or even that tragic results will still happen, but history and life have always been like that, and they must always be like that. It's part of the bigger picture.
Keep up the good work, and may you and like-minded crunchy (is that the right word?) people win and retain the freedoms you enjoy, need, and deserve!
KC
They started to pass a bill like this in Utah too. I don't know what happened to it, but it would have taken a lot of the flexibility out of midwifery. For Oliver (my ten month old), we were planning to go to a birthing center but I waited too long to go and instead of insisting on an excruciating drive to her clinic, she just came to our house and everything went great and I loved it!
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