(Slightly different version x-posted at my pathetic, untitled blog on ning Yay shamless self-promotion!)

So, I've seen this issue brought up a couple of times on feministing, but I don't feel like I've seen a true 101 post about it, so here is my attempt at one.

I'm pro-choice.

Duh.

Most people usually only apply that term to choosing to have an abortion or give birth. Sometimes we include the choice of contraception. However, I think it is about time we start applying that term to women who do make the choice to give birth and the consequences of that.

Because, frankly, in our current maternity care system, once you make that choice to give birth, you are treated like an incubator. Not as a woman who can make rational decisions for herself and her future child, but as a thing who can't make decisions about their childbirth, can't prevent unneccesary interventions, and can't choose where they give birth. A thing to make money off of. A thing to get done with fast, no matter what the woman wants, instead of letting nature take its course.

Watch these:

So, are you morally outraged now? Because you should be. Forcing a bunch of interventions on a woman, solely to speed up her labor, despite the fact that they make her uncomfortable, she might not want them, and they are not healthy for mothers or newborns, is just as much of a human rights violation as denying a woman abortion or contraception.

But wait, there's more. Despite the fact that giving birth at home or at a birthing center (a facility designed to give women a natural, intervention free birth to those who aren't quite comfortable without the emergency interventions right next door) is really the only way to have an intervention free birth, overwhelming evidence that homebirth is just as safe as hospital birth, and the fact that it should be perfectly reasonable to a rational person for a woman to do something that is natural and not a disease or a surgical procedure in her home, out of hospital birth is still pretty much illegal in a whopping 24 states. In 24 states, a woman may be able to choose whether or not to give birth, but when it comes to choosing how to give birth, she is treated like she's incompetant, denied human rights, and dehumanized.

I don't deny that things do sometimes go wrong with birth and sometimes require a doctor's interventions. However,

1. There is no way that this many high-risk births occur.

2. Direct-entry midwives aren't quacks. They go through an extensive training process, are fully qualified to take on emergencies (even if that means relocating to a hospital), and won't take on high-risk pregnancies.

All of these human rights violations going on in mainstream maternity care have inspired me to enter the so-called "alternative" field of maternity care. I plan on starting work as a birth doula right after college, perhaps even during breaks from education if I can find time for getting my certification in between studying. After about two or three years of gettin experience doing that, I plan on completing the midwife certification process linked to above. I'll probably remain living in my home state of Virginia, as it is legal here, and lobby for the legalization in other states.

You can work hard to make sure women have the right to safe, legal, affordable abortion and contraception, and that is excellent and very, very important. However, if you don't support a mother's right to choose whatever type of childbirth she desires, and support her right to information about what mainstream maternity care really will do to her body and to her child, I don't think you can call yourself pro-choice.