Dear Past, Present and Future Members of NCFOM,

It has been a whirlwind in 2007 and the North Carolina Friends of Midwives has made good progress toward our primary goal of passing licensing legislation to authorize Certified Professional Midwives to practice.

This letter is to urge your renewed support as we are working hard to finish in 2008 what hard working people have been striving to achieve for many years.

To summarize, for many years valiant efforts have been made by people such as Magi King, Patti Barnes, Nancy Koerber, Victoria Brown and others to work through legislative obstacles in the North Carolina General Assembly. In February of this year, it became clear that these same “not on my watch” obstacles were going to, yet again, prevent due process and further deny the women and families of North Carolina maternity care options and licensed midwives. Indeed they would deny normalcy to this community. The midwives proceeded to rally the community to join NCFOM and the effort to provide to the families of North Carolina the same thing that is available in every neighbor state – licensed Direct Entry Midwives.

In short order, NCFOM grew six fold. A tremendous lobbying effort ensued. An exciting rally was held on the lawn of the North Carolina legislative campus, several willing sponsors were found to carry our bill to the Health Committee in the NC House of Representatives. While our bill got stuck in drafting, and was not processed this year, we have been successful in being authorized to conduct a Legislative Study Committee under the leadership of Rep. Ty Harrell. This study committee allows us access to the 2008 session and, if successful, will conclude in a report endorsing the licensure of CPMs. This is the way we plan to address the opposition as they will be invited to participate. The study committee will be comprised of several legislators, representatives from the NC Medical Society and others. The project will involve testimony from experts, advocates and the home birthing community making our case for licensing CPMs that are currently illegal in North Carolina.

It is critical that NCFOM enthusiastically support the conduct of this study.

A similar study was recently conducted in Georgia and a great summary can be found here including the final report, reference material and even webcasts of the meetings themselves:

http://gamidwife.com/study.html

In addition to the upcoming study, which will likely begin soon, we are planning for regional meetings and we know if we are successful in processing our bill in 2008 that significant effort urging the support of the General Assembly will be needed.

For me, this is one of the most important efforts I have ever supported. I am proud to stand with the North Carolina Friends of Midwives and fight for the rights of families to choose where they give birth and to have a skilled midwife attend them.

Please join us at this time which promises to be a turning point for maternal rights in North Carolina. If you are not currently a member of NCFOM, please join and also join the NCFOM listserve to keep current on the effort and calls for support.

Respectfully,

Russ Fawcett

Proud Member of NCFOM

Father of 5 (3 home births)