AMA Opposes Home Birth

I just posted about the American Medical Association's newly-adopted public stance against public and private insurance exclusion for gender transition therapies. In a move likely to anger many of the same people hailing the transgender resolution, the AMA has also adopted a new resolution on "Home Deliveries."

The resolution calls for developing

model legislation in support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers.

This amounts, of course, to a call to restrict -- and, potentially, criminalize -- home birth. While the transgender resolution articulates clear support for bodily autonomy, the home birth resolution conflicts with that autonomy. What do the two positions have in common? The AMA would say that they're both in the best interest of patient safety and well-being. Indisputably, both positions mean more money for doctors and hospitals.