By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 1:18 AM
Senator John Loudon set off a firestorm last week when he used a, shall we say, "creative" tactic to get his legislation legalizing midwifery passed by the State Senate. Labels: State_Senate
In the immediate aftermath, his colleagues from the other side of the aisle called him everything from a liar to other four-letter words not allowed on the senate floor. Even his fellow Republicans were angered when they figured out what had happened. The leadership quickly stripped him of his committee chairmanship "indefinitely" as a punishment.
But not everyone was upset with Loudon. In fact, overnight the West County legislator has become the champion of natural birth supporters all across Missouri and beyond.
The day after the story broke, flowers filled Loudon's office, sent from bandit midwives and mothers who believe in their merits.
On Monday, an interview the senator did with PubDef went from roughly a hundred views on YouTube to over 450 [Update: Make that almost 800 by Tuesday], with more than two dozen comments from midwife supporters from as far as Canada (although some of the comments were suspiciously posted by new YouTube users who registered on the same day).
The issue of midwifery, while completely foreign to most Missourians, seems to be one of those rare issues that fire up supporters like few others. Perhaps Sen. Loudon's chairmanship was a small price to pay for his new army of round-bellied moms and outlaw deliverers.
4 Comments:
The same creative tactic was used with the Patriot Act and is being used for the Immigration Bill.
Instead attacking this guy like he is the only one, why don't we attack this legislative practice? If I recall correctly it was also used with Ball Park Village? Didn't Lewis Reed abstain from voting because the legislation was a couple hundred pages and to be voted upon right after introduction?
5/22/2007 8:59 AM
Here is a great story on modern birthing, that I wish every midwifery advocate would read.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/09/061009fa_fact?printable=true
5/22/2007 11:10 AM
Is what he did as serious in its implications as what the republicans idi in calling the previous question regarding the abortion thing?
5/22/2007 1:09 PM
"The issue of midwifery, while completely foreign to most Missourians, seems to be one of those rare issues that fire up supporters like few others."
Missouri has a lot of catching up to do with the rest of the country as it relates to the entire health freedom movement. The midwifery highlights only one aspect of a much broader movement.
People are tired of the high cost of health care and the industries that exacerbate it such as pharmaceutical companies. They are tired of restrictive health care laws that only promote conventional forms of practice while restricting natural healing practices that are widely accepted around the world. These restrictions come in the form of laws that prohibit natural practitioners from practices and attempted regulation of vitamins and food supplements to name a few.
In 1997 62% of the American public utilized some form of complementary or alternative care. At that time it was a 47 billion dollar industry in which people paid out of pocket 20 billion. These rates have only increased since then. Now proponents of conventional medicine ONLY are attacking this industry at the expense of the citizens who support it. This limits options for health care choices for everyone.
Health Freedom is really about citizens being empowered and having the right to self determination in making your own health care choices. Other states are passing laws that protect and support health freedom for all of its citizents.
5/23/2007 10:23 AM
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