Legal Guide for Home Birth Midwives Recommends Lying

Lindsay Beyerstein

Dr. Amy Tuteur has excerpted some choice passages from From Calling to Courtroom: A Survival Guide for Midwives,” a 2004 legal handbook for midwives. One of the big legal concerns for HBMs is getting busted for practicing medicine without a license. Unlike certified nurse midwives, who are highly trained professionals, homebirth midwives may have little or no formal training.

That’s why the state takes a dim view of HBMs injecting drugs or, God forbid, performing any kind of surgery. Some, like Elizabeth Camp, choose to ignore the law. In the book, Camp advises that outlaw midwives to lie to their patients (and falisfy their charts) to avoid prosecution:

In the future my motto is, No witnesses”. If I ever have to cut an episiotomy to save a baby’s life, I would ask everyone to turn their backs and turn off all video cameras. I would say to the mother, I’m sorry, I had to TEAR you to deliver your baby quickly.” I do not carry Pitocin anymore. For those midwives who do carry Pitocin, I would advise them to never admit it to anyone who has the ability to testify (that is, anyone except your husband). If a midwife ever feels the need to inject Pitocin or administer any kind of drug, such as Methergine, she should refer to such substances as minerals.”

Camp recommends cutting a patient with scissors and telling her she tore on her own. She recommends injecting Pitocin and calling it minerals.”

No witnesses” is a motto for a hitman, not a health care provider.

Please consider supporting our work.

I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.

Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.

Lindsay Beyerstein is an award-winning investigative journalist and In These Times staff writer who writes the blog Duly Noted. Her stories have appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Slate, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and other publications. Her photographs have been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times’ City Room. She also blogs at The Hillman Blog (http://​www​.hill​man​foun​da​tion​.org/​h​i​l​l​m​a​nblog), a publication of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a non-profit that honors journalism in the public interest.
Illustrated cover of Gaza issue. Illustration shows an illustrated representation of Gaza, sohwing crowded buildings surrounded by a wall on three sides. Above the buildings is the sun, with light shining down. Above the sun is a white bird. Text below the city says: All Eyes on Gaza
Get 10 issues for $19.95

Subscribe to the print magazine.