Woman’s right to choose how to give birth – court

Birthing women will have more choices for where and how they give birth after a decision was made Wednesday by the High Court to allow natural birthing centers to operate without being connected to a hospital.

“Our position is that it is the woman’s right to choose how to give birth and where to give birth,” Iris Raz, head of the Israel Midwives Association, told The Jerusalem Post.

Specifically, the majority of a seven-judge panel ruled that natural birthing centers are not hospitals and therefore they are not required to have the same license as hospitals to operate. They said that at the majority of these centers, women give birth only with the help of midwives and without medical intervention.

The court ruling came in response to an appeal filed by Women Call for Birth Israel and Tamar Tessler and Ofrit Pek, after the women’s birthing center “Maternity Home” was closed down around four years ago by the Health Ministry when it ruled that such centers should not be operated outside the hospital, claiming they posed a risk to the women birthing in them. The court in 2018 ruled against the birthing centers, which led to the appeal in February that was approved by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Esther Hayut.

Wednesday’s ruling reversed the previous decision.

Now, Raz said, the Health Ministry will need to determine the clinical rules by which these birthing centers will be governed. Until then, the judges ruled that they would be governed by the same regulations that apply to home birthing, which has been formally available in Israel since 2012.

“Birth is not a medical event, but a natural event, and every low-risk pregnant woman has the right to choose the way she will give birth,” Raz said.

Tamar Field-Gersh, a resident of Pardess Hanna, agreed. She delivered three of her four children at home and said, “it is most important to be able to relax and have the space so you can open up and give birth to a life. For me, that safe place is without a doubt my home.”

Field-Gersh described her home births, and the midwives who accompanied her, as “amazing.”

She said that in some births she was “in action mode – here to have the baby and not mess around” – and other times she wanted candles and music. She liked that she was able to “play around with it” and “run the show.”

Finally, Field-Gersh added that she always felt safe.

“I never felt scared at home and I always felt taken care of,” she concluded.

Raz said that she hopes the Health Ministry will soon take the needed steps to empower more women to have natural childbirth, to improve the conditions under which midwives work, as well as to help bring natural birthing options to more hospitals.

She said the majority of births have and will take place in hospitals, and some women simply do not have the money for a private birthing center or home birth.

“In every hospital, there should be a natural birthing center for women who want to labor naturally,” Raz concluded.