Homebirth under threat

Cut from Hoyden About Town post:

Homebirth to become illegal in a year. … And no matter how low-risk the woman nor how much she desires a homebirth, women will not be allowed to do so legally with a midwife. Because the legislation introduced this week will ban midwives from practising without insurance; and there is no insurance provider for homebirth midwives. So long, too bad, so sad. Good bye.

For a good summary, see my midwife Joy’s post, who also wrote a great post about how the legislation affects private midwives attending home births:

It’s not true that *all* homebirth will be illegal after 1 July 2010, when the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, which mandates professional indemnity insurance as a condition for registration, is set to come into effect.

Homebirth programs that are operated by hospitals and health authorities will be able to continue. The option that will become illegal is private arrangements between a woman and a midwife. That means midwives like me, and an estimated 150 others, will be out of work, and all the women who want to arrange homebirth privately will be denied that choice.

And please sign this petition to save private midwifery in Australia. Because I certainly don’t want to lose the right to the choice of being able to have a baby how I want to, and neither should any woman.