When I spoke with Loudon on Friday afternoon for this blog post, he said Democratic senator Chuck Graham of Columbia had successfully blocked passage of his proposed legislation, and that as a last resort he planned to attach the bill this week in the form of an amendment.
The truth is that Loudon had already slipped it into the big health-insurance package the Senate passed on Thursday.
Loudon apologized for not being upfront.*
“I knew that I had put the provision in when we talked, but I wasn’t sure it would become law. The house was still debating it. I felt badly,” Loudon says.
Loudon's fellow legislators might be seeking an apology as well. They overlooked the amendment because Loudon had cagily removed any mention of midwifery. Instead Section 376.1753 contains the word “tocological.”
That's a reference to “tocology” -- from the Greek tokos, meaning "childbirth" -- the practice of obstetrics or midwifery.
Loudon says midwife advocates found the word in an ACT test prep guide, which one of the families’ teenagers was studying.
Loudon scored on behalf of the people he credits with the birth of his son, but yesterday he lost his chairmanship of the Small Business, Insurance and Industrial Relations Committee, when Kirkwood Republican Mike Gibbons, pesident pro tem of the Senate, gave him the heave-ho.
The Senate may yet find a way to repeal the provision that was passed last week.
*[Update 5/15/07 2:20 p.m.] Editor's note: As originally posted, this item said that Senator Loudon had "apologized for lying" to us. The senator called to clarify that he did not apologize for lying, but rather for his failure to disclose when he spoke with the paper last week that he had already attached his bill as an amendment, and that a vote was, at that very moment, pending. Point taken: Call it a conscious decision to withhold information.
I gave birth to my two sons at home with the assistance of a skilled midwife in Webster Groves. I've been working to help change the law in Missouri which prohibits Certified Professional Midwives from assisting women with birth for the past five years. Currently, Missouri is the only state in which the practice of midwifery is a felony. Certified Professional Midwives are LEGAL in 40 other states! Senator Loudon is to be commended for giving women the option to give birth where and with whom they choose. This was and is a Bi-partisan issue with both Republican and Democratic sponsorship. Numerous studies and the World Health Organization all support the safety and good outcomes of planned homebirth with midwives. Currently, hospitals "manage" birth with inductions, epidurals, and a sky-rocketing cesarean rate over 30%. Many of us choose to have control over our bodies and our families by choosing midwife assisted homebirths. Currently, in Missouri , many women also choose to have babies unassisted because they can not locate a midwife due to their status as felons! Chuck Graham should be the one under verbal attack for being the mouth-piece to special interest medical associations which wish to dictate where a woman can give birth (and it only begins there)! Give Loudon a break on this one, if you're a woman, your uterus and baby will thank you!
Posted at: May 15, 2007 2:43 PM