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Home Birth and the Maternity Outcomes Emergency: Attending to Race and Gender in Childbirth
- IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 2021
- pp. 2-18
- Article
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Abstract:
Childbirth in the United States is in crisis. This is especially true for Black and brown mothers. This childbirth emergency constitutes a failure of the social contract: because society has failed to provide minimally decent care for all birthing mothers, but especially for Black and brown mothers, it is necessary to allow mothers to choose home birth. I amplify the voices of Black and brown scholars and midwives to defend home birth, and I argue that home birth is safe and empowering and that it is rational for those who desire it to choose it.