As a feminist, I'm thinking about feminist arguments that are used when it comes to promoting "free birth".

So the free birth proponents claim it's female empowerment to give birth without midwives or physicians.
While midwives are mostly women, the free birth activists quoted in the article criticize midwives for "betrayal" when the midwife recommends medical intervention. They'll claim "The female body can do this", "It's safe", "Medical interventions make it unsafe", "Trust your body".

So...

First, it's very binary. Everyone who gives birth is apparently a woman in their eyes. Do non binary people even exist in their worldview? (nor in the article... sigh, it's the Guardian, so I'm not surprised).

Second, the empowerment idea. Women as being empowered by giving birth. This is very much intwined with vaginal births. At least I have never seen anyone arguing that caesarean sections are empowering. So they think that births with an epidural / Caesarean sections / medications are seen as "lesser" or even not "a real birth" and in that worldview, people who give birth in these ways do not have the right to feel empowered after having given birth.

The "real birth" thing in general. People who are obsessed with vaginal births without any intervention sometimes also devalue mothers who have adopted as "not real mothers", which is really horrendous.

What's so mind boggling about the free birth moment is the argument that giving birth without any experts present is better and safer than assistance from experts who have trained for years for their job. What exactly, is feminist about avoiding the help of experts? Where is the solidarity?? the sense of community?

It's easy to see why some of those free birth proponents start as feminists and end up as fans of traditional gender roles: The road from "Women should give birth without assistance! That's natural and better" to "Women should give birth! multiple births! Traditional is always better" is pretty short...

#feminism #FreeBirth