When my co-host Christine mentioned the idea of linking the fight for legal midwifery in the 70s with today’s struggle for abortion rights, I thought it was an intriguing idea. But what would midwives, whose lives are dedicated to celebrating pregnancy and birth, think about the idea?
It turns out I didn’t need to worry about this. Our two guests, Kate Bowland and Raven Lang, not only dedicated their lives to healthy childbirth, but also to women’s bodily autonomy in general. As Kate said during our discussion, she believes that a woman has a right to “control over who touches me, as well as control over what goes into me and what comes out of me.”
That pretty much sums it up. Laws against appropriate healthcare for women are fundamentally devised to take personal agency away from women. Instead of trusting that women can make the best choices for their health and the health of their potential children, laws against midwifery and abortion both assume that women’s bodies belong to the collective. No such laws exist for men.
This conversation included two women in their 70s and two in their 50s. We kept mentioning what we hoped about younger women and wondered about them. I hope some of you listening are still in your child-bearing years, and that this conversation gives you some food for thought—and some access to your own “fiery, uppity, righteous young woman” who will risk everything the way that Kate and Raven did to insure women’s bodily autonomy in our law and culture.
Related podcasts and blog entries:
- Comprehensive healthcare includes abortion care
- On women and people
- Abortion stigma: the root of healthcare confusion
- Red state doctors: Come to California. We’ll let you practice medicine without politics.
Links to more information:
- Raven Lang’s website includes her writing and information about childbirth
- Birth Happens: A Brief History of Santa Cruz Midwives from the San Lorenzo Valley Museum
- “Jailed for Being a Midwife” by Lisa Robinson
- “For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women” by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English
KSQD’s collection of podcasts covering the abortion debate: