We all know I love Rachel Maddow.  I cheesily sent her an email today.  As the only mainstream news person who really paid attention when Dr Tiller was shot, I thought maybe she would think about covering the role of midwifery in the health care debate.  <Sigh>  A girl can dream..

Rachel,

I've worked in abortion care for six years now, and I want to thank you so much for your unflinching coverage of the murder of Kansas abortion provider and Christian grandfather George Tiller.  There weren't really any other places in the media where I felt like someone care about the experience of clinic workers in the wake of such terrible violence.  Thanks for "getting it" in a way that even my own partner, who is pro-choice because he knows it's none of his business, did not. 

I am also really grateful for your coverage of health care reform.  These days at the abortion clinic, I'm doing the health insurance billing, and this perspective on the health care system has made me a somewhat obsessive advocate for health care reform.  Profit-driven insurance companies need to be reigned in.  Only in the health care arena does the consumer not know what they will be responsible for paying until long after they have been provided with services, because insurance companies are not bound by the information they give to patients and doctor's offices about what will be covered. 

The real reason I am writing to you right now, though, is because I think you might be able to "get it" on another issue that is sometimes invisible to the mainstream media, probably because, like abortion, it is a women's health issue.  But it is also a health care reform issue, a public health issue, and a deficit reduction issue:  midwifery care and out of hospital birth.

The US has abysmal maternal and infant mortality rates, while spending huge amounts of money on high-tech maternity care, most of which came into use before it's benefits had been rigorously demonstrated.  Health care reform needs evidence-based birth care.  Science is now beginning to back up leaving birth alone, and when women give birth with minimal intervention, the cost-savings is huge.  That is why Certified Professional Midwives need to be a part of health care reform.  If CPMs were federally recognized as eligible for reimbursement by Medicaid, poor women would have increased access to safe, evidence-based, low-cost care.  In the midst of all the corporate advocacy happening in Washington, women from the MAMA Campaign and The Big Push for Midwives are trying to get the voices of women and families heard.  I am writing to ask you to cover the movement for the full range of reproductive justice in health care reform.  

The bottom line is that we need to reduce health care costs, or health care reform just won't work.  Women who choose to prevent pregnancy when they are not prepared to be parents save money for their insurer (the state in the case of a public plan).  Women who do not wish to be pregnant but are will save their insurer money by choosing abortion.  Women who are carrying a pregnancy to term and wish to seek midwifery care in an out of hospital setting will save their insurer money because interventions will be reduced.  Any reasonable insurer, while not mandating a woman to do any of these things, will provide her the coverage to do these things if she so chooses.  By honoring a woman's own wisdom about her reproductive choices, insurers win as does the dignity of the woman, who is given every opportunity to control her reproductive destiny. 

I am a huge fan and love listening to your show on my computer at work.  Thanks for what you do. 

Sincerely,

Alison Cole Duren-Sutheralnd