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Welcome to
IDAHOANS FOR MIDWIVES
official site!
Legislative Bulletin April 8, 2008
House Bill 488aa pulled from House Calendar. Dear Friends of Midwives,
First of all, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of the phone calls, emails, and letters to your legislators. Our bill was the talk of Capitol Hill this year. The legislators were very impressed by our grassroots efforts and how polite we were in our correspondences.
I feel very confident that this bill will go through next year. We have made tremendous progress with our legislators. Please give yourselves all a big pat on the back. You made a difference!
I would like to clarify for everyone, why we pulled the bill back to committee. It was brought to our attention that we had left out the definition of midwifery. What we did say in the bill was that 'midwifery is not the practice of medicine, nursing, or nurse-midwifery.' But, we did not say what it was either. So, the Attorney General's office basically said that if the bill was challenged in a court of law, (Which would not be uncharacteristic of the Idaho Medical Assoc.), the definition of midwifery would be decided by the courts. It could be defined from a dictionary, from the World Health Organization, or from Utah's law. We decided that in order to maintain our integrity with the legislators, we would pull the bill and bring it back next year with flawless language.
This will also give us the opportunity to make some of our legislative opponents happy by us once again saying that we tried to work with the IMA. Rep. McGeachin is going to set up meetings with them and some of the other bill supporters to see if they will really be willing to compromise. (Which we all know they won't!) This will give us the opportunity to go back next year and say, 'Look we tried again and here are all the changes we made to make the IMA happy, but they will never like this bill.' Most of our supporters already know that they will never be happy because we are a competing profession. I anticipate, however, that it will give us more credibility with some legislators.
Speaking of legislators, we are going to send out a 'Legislative Survey' to all the legislators that are running for office. We need to know who is going to support us and who is not. Then, we need to carefully consider supporting the legislators in our districts that are behind our birthing choices. In the next few months, please stay connected as we will need you to become politically active in your own districts. There will be some new candidates that we may wish to support that would really be supportive of Idahoans for Midwives and the families represented by this organization.
Again, thank you all for your amazing show of support. You truly made my efforts in Boise easier by all of your behind the scenes work. You are all awesome!
Love,
Michelle Bartlett, CPM.
Thank-you for supporting Idaho midwives!
We hope you find our site informative
"In every country where I have seen real progress in maternity care, it was women's groups working together with midwives that made the difference."
-Marsden Wagner, MD MSPH
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