The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) has always been an inclusive organization, a place for all midwives. MANA's whole foundation has been one of acceptance and unity. I was shocked, therefore, when I heard that the board had proposed that only licensed, certified professional midwives (CPMs) or certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) could be voting members. This proposal reeks of a witch hunt and will cause even worse separation in our already divided movement.
Midwifery was bruised and nearly broken in New York state in the mid-1990s when direct entry and lay midwives were outlawed, then replaced, by only those midwives coming out of an "approved" direct entry program. Is MANA planning this scene for the whole country? Will MANA members simply stand by in complicity? If so, another midwifery uprising will occur, bringing forth a new surge of lay midwives who are willing to serve women in a way that we can't. The flow of the river is carrying us in a direction we will soon be unable to resist. Midwifery will be back where it was several years ago, with a strong, illegal lay midwifery movement acting as a powerful undercurrent. The midwives of MANA will represent the status quo. We will have colluded with the patriarchal medical establishment so that it is against the law to practice anything the whim of medicine decides midwives should or shouldn't do. We will be limited soon by protocols that will hamstring us into practicing watered-down midwifery and will rob women of their birthing rights.
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