Our Collective Voices Are Needed for this Quick Action for Healthy Birth in Alabama

I write to you from my home in Alabama where last fall, I assisted at the first birth in a birth center in our state, and where the state of safer birth is now in jeopardy.

Will you weigh in for reproductive justice in my state?

The Alabama Department of Public Health has proposed a draft of birth center rules and regulations that are discriminatory, outdated, and non-evidence based. These proposed rules and regulations will prohibit many eligible families from being able to afford and access birth centers in any of the proposed (and already operating) birthing centers in the state.

Earlier this week, I was interviewed on our local TV station about our opposition to these new rules.

Alabama has among the highest rates of maternal death and infant death of all states. For women of color, the outcomes are worse. 37% of our counties are maternity care deserts. We need MORE skilled providers serving our communities - not unnecessary restrictions.

Freestanding birth centers staffed with midwives, including Certified Professional Midwives, aren’t a problem; they’re a solution. Birth Centers have demonstrated positive outcomes for pregnant people and their babies.

Our goal at Side With Love is to make sure that Alabama families who desire birth center births, are able to make values-aligned decisions about their birth settings and that those decisions are affordable and accessible to all. This is what bodily autonomy looks like. This is what it means when we say “Every Body is Sacred.”

Will you join me in putting your faith in action in this fight for reproductive equity and justice?

Help us flood the Alabama Department of Health with public comments to ensure that all of Alabama’s families who desire the midwifery model of care in birthing centers are allotted that opportunity.

Thank you for taking action for birth justice.

Charity Howard
Reproductive Justice Organizing Intern
Side With Love