Hawaii Wins Lawsuit allowing traditional midwives to practice
We have been paying close attention to the case in Hawaii because it mirrors the legislative dilemma in Georgia. Here is a brief timeline of what’s been going on in Hawaii and why it is exciting for us in Georgia!
2019- Act 32 licensed only CertifiedProfessionalMidwives who had completed a MEAC-accredited degree program. It made it so that traditional and cultural midwives were no longer allowed to call themselves midwives (sound familiar? Georgia did the same thing.), so they began using the term birth attendant. This Act also required a Homebirth Task Force to investigate, define terms, and “incorporate all birth practitioners and allow them to practice to the fullest extend under the law.” Here are the findings of the Midwifery Task Force. You might appreciate how thorough and fair they are, when you compare it to the GORCC findings we experienced here in Georgia.
TLDR: This made it so you had to go through a degree program to practice as an out of hospital midwife in Hawaii.
2023- Traditional and cultural midwives exemption to licensure requirements expires. Licensure expands to also include the NARM Portfolio Evaluation Process for CPM certification, an alternative to the MEAC degree program requirement.
TLDR: Now a degree wasn’t required, but you still had to be a CPM. Traditional and cultural midwives are now illegal.
2024- Six midwives and 3 mothers sue that state of Hawaii over midwifery laws that left out cultural and traditional midwives. They WON a temporary injection hat allows traditional and cultural midwives to practice again! Congratulations to Hawaii midwives! The case will continue until they are fully secured under Hawaii law.
Read more at Hawaii Public Radio, the Pacific Birth Collective, or from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
This is why it is important for licensure efforts in Georgia to include all of the currently practicing midwives.
NACPM Georgia is committed to pursuing licensure for community midwives that reflects the diverse population of midwives serving our great state of Georgia.
Georgia had a certification process through the health departments for midwives that ran through the 60s when they decided to stop issuing new certifications. in 2015 the Rules and Regulations were changed to reflect that they no longer offered these certifications. The requirement became that you had to become a nurse midwife for licensure as a midwife in Georgia. Although community midwives had been filing birth certificates for home births for years, no one told them this rule had been changed. Can you imagine if your career became illegal overnight and no one told you?!
To make it further confusing, Georgia Code of Law still states that county health departments can issue certificates of midwifery, but none of them do this.
Make it make sense, Georgia!
