THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW

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PLOWBOY: To play the devil's advocate again, suppose such a couple does decide on home birth without a professional attendant . . . even though the mother has some serious physical condition — like maternal diabetes — that makes her a high-risk case. Would you, personally, support that couple's decision?

TOMPSON: Ultimately, I do think the parents' birth decisions should be supported . . . although I can't imagine a couple's choosing to have their baby at home if they really felt that doing so might well lead to its death. Today, unfortunately, there are instances in which society makes such decisions. Consider, for example, the case in Denver in which a judge and lawyer held a hearing in a hospital labor room, and the judge ruled that an unwilling mother had to have a caesarean. And, of course, what happens if a baby is damaged during such a procedure? Will the doctor or the hospital raise it? No, the parents will have to live with the effects. They're the ones truly responsible for the child.

And you should know that there have never been any studies done that prove that hospitals are safer places for either low-risk or high-risk mothers to deliver their babies.

PLOWBOY: Marian, are home birth parents and practitioners really getting in trouble these days?

TOMPSON: Yes, they are. Mothers have been having babies at home since time began, but all of a sudden — in the past three or four years — people who attend home births are being prosecuted on all sorts of charges. Licensure boards are charging doctors with incompetence or negligence. Midwives are being accused of practicing medicine without a license . . . or of murder! And it's happening all across the country.

Here, look at the records I brought with me to the conference. This first page is a partial listing of the doctors — it includes 22 of them — who have been prosecuted on charges related to the fact that they attend home births.

PLOWBOY: I see what you mean. There's one physician here whose troubles began in 1977 and one in 1970, but all the others were charged in 1978, '79, '80, or '81.

TOMPSON: And here's a list of 29 threatened midwives.

PLOWBOY: Let's see . . . 1979, 1980, 1978 . . . not one of these problems came up before 1978.

TOMPSON: The medical community certainly seems to be making an effort to get after those who attend out-of-hospital births. And it's becoming clear that the issue is not the competence or incompetence of the practitioner, but simply the establishment's decision to get rid of that person. At ABCC we often send medical experts to testify at trials. We've seen cases where, after our witnesses have successfully refuted every charge against a doctor, the prosecution will say, "We're going to dig through that physician's records until we find something."

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