I’m currently reading two books — “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand and “Capitalism and Freedom, 40th Anniversary Edition” by Milton Friedman. In the latter, Friedman’s major first point is that economic freedom is necessary for political freedom and cultural freedom.

Sickness Care is one area where Commonwealth governments are particularly egregious in their limitation of freedom of association and economy, with Canada arguably being the worst. In this case, Australia is ultimately limiting freedom for women by moving to monopolize childbirth.

People often opine “follow the money.” Here it is all too true.

i think i might move to new zealand or holland where homebirths are considered normal for birth.

One was conducted between 2003 and 2006 by McMaster University. The births studied were all low-risk births, but those who had planned homebirths had better outcomes (lower rate of complications) including a significantly lower rate of interventions, than those who birthed in hospital.

The other recent study was conducted in BC and studied births between Jan 1, 2000 and Dec 31, 2004. 12 972 births were studied, and comprised three groups: planned homebirth with a midwife, planned hospital birth with a midwife, and planned hospital birth with a physician. The results were still far more favourable for midwife-attended homebirths than for midwife-attended hospital births, demonstrating that environment is important in the outcome of the birth, and not just who is attending as a practitioner.

These two studies, the results of which were both only released within the past few months, demonstrate a clear advantage to planned homebirth. Certainly there are occasions which can make a hospital birth advisable, but such cases are surprisingly rare. Legislation such as that proposed by the Australian government gives us the impression that homebirth is necessarily dangerous and irresponsible, but that is simply not the case. Unbiased statistics land squarely in the favour of homebirth.

Moreover, the importance and sanctity of choice and personal sovereignty and the denial of such by administrative bodies is, quite simply, unjust.

Do you have a reference for the greater danger associated with hospital births? I’d be particularly interested to see if this is true when comparing like-for-like situations. For example, one could make the case that the emergency room is a particularly dangerous place to go after being hit by a car, as the outcome of those who do not bother to get medical assistance has a a far lower associated mortality rate than those who are rushed to hospital. This, however, might be classed as… misleading.

Jon,
It really is a pity that mid-wives are not going to be permitted to get professional indemnity insurance. That is the most severe crime committed by this bill.

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In a world where a woman’s freedom to kill her pre-born child is hailed as a glorious human right, it is peculiar to watch her freedom to bring her child into this world curtailed. Opposition to mid-wifery — whether it manifests itself through increased costs, insidiously restrictive entry into the market such as this bill or just clinical fanaticism — belongs in the heap of truly demonically callous politics.