#456: Principalities & Powers & Protecting Traditional Midwifery with Abby Iovine

0:00Welcome to the Burling Instincts podcast. I'm Dr. Stuart Fishfein, community-based practicing obstetrician and long-time advocate for birth choices. And I'm Bliss Young, a licensed midwife. Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything birth. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy that you're here, so here we go. She's ready. We're ready. I'm ready. Good morning, good morning. Good morning to you. Good morning, everybody. Good afternoon, good evening and for those of you, good middle of the night. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Burling Instincts podcast. We're Bliss and I talk about everything, including birth. Not just birth, right? We're getting a really good feedback about the podcast that came out today with Barbara Harper. I saw that. Yeah, and it was, I mean, I, I have reflected back on many things that she said. And, you know, of course, I listened to it again because

1:03we always do that just to make sure that before we release it to everyone that there's nothing that we want to edit or change. And yeah, she's just, um, what a legend. So hope that we can bring it back. We just let her go. And I've gotten people that have ridden me already this morning, especially from like England and stuff, because they're up earlier than we are. Who just said it's just, they just could not put it down because you know, even though we got off topic and stuff like that, it was still remarkable information that she was sharing with us. It was just so cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it was off topic. It just was, uh, it was just a lot of storytelling about her history and it was amazing. I just loved it. Yeah, I get that. I get that. All right. So how are you, I'm doing really well. Yeah. Waiting on these twins and just kind of live in life. You know how it is when you're on call. It's like you're kind of on a pause, but you don't want to like totally put yourself on hold. So yeah, I'm feeling, I'm feeling great and excited and relaxed. And I'm doing, um, my first mentorship started and really enjoying that and we'll continue to do

2:08that this year. So if you missed an opportunity to join it, I hope that you'll join the next one. And then I'm feeling really content, which is beautiful. I am glad you're back. We missed you last week. I had a great interview. I just want to reiterate that if you haven't listened to last week's podcast with Dr. Herve, you guys got to listen to that. This is a doctor who gets it. Speaking of people who get it, our guest today, Abby Iovine is a midwife in Pennsylvania, but she's much more than that. She is working with HHS on trying to preserve traditional midwifery. We're going to have a conversation with her. Very excited. Coming up, but I've got a lot of stuff. So if you don't mind, if I get into my. Love it. At draining my attic here. Okay. First of all, congratulations to the men and women's hockey team. Yep. Everybody knows that listens to me that I'm a big hockey fan. And I'm start for winning something because my team hasn't want to play off series since it won the Stanley Cup back in 2014. So it's been a while, but it was magnificent and hockey to watch. And I was very moved by that all. I was on the back to basics podcast with Anna Mondanaro. And you can listen to

3:15me talk about birth stuff again. What else do I talk about? You know, I wish the guys on Spid and Chicklets or something like that would have me on the podcast. So I could talk about hockey and birth at the same time. You should send them up. I'm proud of all like keeping it from people. I won't think I'm that big time, but that would be fun. The back to basics is episode 42. We'll put these things in the show notes for you. I had a physical. I had my annual Medicare. I can't call it a physical, but your medical wellness check. And I think I might have mentioned this last year, but they don't do anything physical on you. They do take your blood pressure and your pulse ox. But they don't check your reflexes. They don't listen to your heart. They don't listen to your logs. I don't do anything. I did have to draw a clock at 10 minutes after four. So I had to think about it for a second because one was last time I looked at a clock. That wasn't that wasn't digital. But I was still like, well, the past that. So that's that's good. That is good. Probably be with you for at least another year.

4:20How's your knee, by the way? I was thinking about your knee this morning. It's getting better. It's getting better. I have days that that I have every day. I have discomfort still. And sometimes it's really annoying to the point where I can't focus. So I do end up having to take something, but not not every day. But when I'm out walking now, I have no limp. I feel good. My leg doesn't, my leg feels better walking than when I'm sitting. So it's it's getting there. You know, my family has a ski trip, the end of March in Colorado. And I'm going to go, but I'm not going to ski. Okay. This year. But I, but I'm at least excited to go and feel good about it. So I'm starting to get the energy back to want to travel, which is good because a week from now, I'll be a Minnesota teaching. And then a couple of weeks after that, I'll be an Idaho teaching. So the teaching starting up again, very excited for my two day seminars to begin again. I'll be seeing you in or again, I think right around my birthday. Well, I'm hearing this, but it's not in stone yet. So

5:24we'll see that would be in September and we'll we'll figure that out. I'm excited about that. Okay. So the one thing before we get bringing our guest, Abby, I got to get off my chest. It's this week's a cog stuff. So a cog sends out weekly emails to us and called a weekly digest. And one of the things they're doing now is they are updating their guidance on maternal immunization. So just when you thought there's new evidence coming out that maybe these things aren't as safe as they should be or whatever else. A cog it like the American Academy of Pediatrics is doubling down on their on their recommendations. And they said a cog has released an updated guidance on maternal immunizations, underscoring the importance of vaccines and protecting pregnant women and their infants. The guidance urges OBGYNs to routinely review patient's immunization status and recommend eating vaccines. It also addresses barriers to vaccination, including misinformation. What does misinformation mean? It means lives. Okay, because there is no such word as misinformation.

6:29Either what you're saying is a lie or it's true and you just don't like it. And that's what misinformation means here because we've seen that before. This is the birthing instincts definition. And long standing mistrust of the medical system. We've been in charge of the obstetrical medical system for the last 60, 70 years. A cog. Right. But they don't have any self awareness that the reason there's a long trend standing distrust of the medical system is because of them. This is me talking. You can have a different opinion if you want. So they put out this a cog committee statement number 741, which is called maternal immunizations. And it's put out. I want to give credit to the doctors who put it this out. American College, OBGYN, immunization, infectious disease, and public health preparedness expert work group. With Mark Tarantine, Kevin Alt, Rhoda Spurling, and Laura Riley,

7:31all MDs. So they can be I just want them. If they're proud of their work, that's fine. I wouldn't be if I were them. Humanization is an essential part of preventative care for adults, including pregnant individuals. Each vaccine recommended for pregnant patients is important for the protection of the maternal child dyad. So speaking of that, I just want people to understand that there's questions about the basic root of all our science. And if people watch the high wire episode number 464, where they had Ben Tapper on and Alex Zach, who I had to benefit of being on his podcast recently, on talking about whether virus has actually exist. And the territorial versus germ theory versus thing. And it's very interesting podcast. I'll put that link in the show notes. Because if truly viruses don't exist in the way we've been brainwashed to believe they do, then what is vaccination really doing for us? I don't know. I have to listen to the episode.

8:33Well, there's Cox Postulates, which doesn't seem to apply to vaccines, which is, you know, in I'm summarizing here from memory. But if you think something causes a disease, you should be able to take that from a person who's affected by it, isolate it, give it to people who aren't affected by it, and they should have the exact same disease as the person who was affected by it. But that's not the way that stuff has never been proven with viruses, according to Alex Zach in Ben Tapper. So we'll two guys I actually got chance to meet in my lifetime. And two guys, they're not crazy. So why would they say stuff like that? Why would they risk everything to say stuff like that? Right. So the summary of the conclusions from ACOG for maternal immunizations are that OBGYNs and other obstetric professionals should routinely assess their pregnant patient's vaccination status. So what does that mean? Well, that means every time you come in, they should be asking you, are you vaccinated? And they're going to keep asking you if you're

9:35vaccinated. And if you're not vaccinated, they're going to try to tell you you should be vaccinated. This is what ACOG tells people. We call this directed counseling once before we talked about it, where if you counsel somebody about a vaccine and they choose not to get it, then you must have counseled them wrong. That's that whole thing. OBGYNs and other obstetric care professionals should recommend, and when possible, administer needed vaccines to their pregnant patients. I disagree with that 100%. I don't think there's any indication that I would ever give a pregnant woman a vaccine until it's tested for safety and a randomized placebo controlled trial and shown that it has benefit that's greater than the risk. How an organization like ACOG can continue to promote something that has never been tested for safety is still, you know, it doesn't baffle me anymore because they're they're brainwashed. They think we're brainwashed, but and they have a

10:36big bully pulpit, so they get to say, but that fortunately, I have our podcast and stuff out there. We also say individuals who are or will be pregnant during the fall winter respiratory season should receive annual influenza and coronavirus disease, not 2019 vaccines. So they're still recommending that all pregnant women in the fall and winter get a flu and COVID shot despite all the things we're learning about the COVID shot. And you've already mentioned that many times, plus I can still hear it in my voice, but how the flu shot sometimes what has a 16 percent effect of this rate, and whether or not it even has any effect of this rate at all, but it does contain things, especially the multitose bile, has mercury in it, has thymarisol in it. But the basic thing that I think about when I think about vaccines for myself and for children, I think about the potential risks of side effects from injecting something into your body versus

11:36what we're vaccinating for. And so nobody likes to get the flu. It slows you down. It's like a speed bump in life. You know, you got to like rest and and and we've talked about before that, you know, I'm not high risk of having a major illness from getting the flu. So I would be in bed. I would take care of myself. My immune system would do its job and would get strengthened from doing that. And I just don't I don't understand why we would want to take the risk for something that has been proven in many years to be not very effective and then have the potential of causing great harm to you. It just doesn't make any sense. Common sense. Yeah. And what you said very clearly and denying your body the right use its own immune system to strengthen itself. Right. Right. I think most people just don't really understand the body and how immune to how our bodies and immune systems work. And so I think we just need to really

12:39understand our own bodies and be in touch with them and not just take other people's word for being good for you. And if you see the work of James Thorpe, some of you may know who we is. He's a maternal fetal medicine specialist, very outspoken against vaccines. And he talks about the incredible rise in stillbirth rate that occurred in 2021, not explainable by anything but the obvious. And yet a cog is still recommending the COVID vaccine to pregnant women. They also say all pregnant individuals should receive a T-dap vaccine. As early as 27 to 36 to stational weeks, and they should receive it with each pregnancy. So I've gone over this a million times, but if you pregnant this year and you have a baby and you get pregnant next year, you need another one. But if you're not pregnant, you're supposed to get one whatever 10 years or whatever. So I don't understand that. I know they're boosting your immunity. So you more antibodies cross the placenta, but you've already got immunity.

13:42If you, if there's, yeah, I don't, yeah, never mind. And then all eligible pregnant individuals who meet criteria should receive the respiratory sensitial virus vaccine, which again, very important what you said. What's the risk of a newborn baby being severely hospitalized or dying from RSV versus the risk of the vaccine? And they don't talk about that. But we went through the numbers before our previous podcast that very few children under age five die from RSV. Every death would be tragedy, but we're talking about 18 million children and we're talking about somewhere around 300 that may die. And that's between zero and five, not zero and six months. So how many of those kids already had their RSV vaccines and died anyway? We don't know because the CDC doesn't break it down. They only go to anything less than five years of age. Or immunocompromised in some way had some other co-factor going on that would make them more susceptible to something like that, you know? Yeah. Well, then don't look at that. So I just have to read the

14:46conflict of interest statement on this guideline that they put out this committee statement. See if you can understand the gobbledygoup here. All ACO committee members and authors have submitted a conflict of interest disclosure statement related to this published product. Any potential conflicts have been considered and managed in accordance with ACOG's conflicts of interest disclosure policy. The ACOG policies can be found on acog.org. For products jointly developed with the other organizations, conflicts of interest disclosures by representatives of the other organizations are addressed by those organizations. So in other words, what they're telling you is they have huge conflicts of interest, but they're not going to put it on this paper. They're going to make you go look at find it someplace else. Because every time there's no conflict of interest, it says the authors report no conflict of interest. Right. Oh, God. All right. Well, I had more, but maybe

15:46well, when we get to Patreon, we'll talk a little bit more about ACOG's decision to withdraw from the advisory committee on immunization practices and a paper that's recently come out showing a correlation, not causation between COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy induced hypertension. So I'll get to that, but this took longer than I thought, and I want to get to our guest. So let me read her bio, and then we'll take a quick break, okay? Yep, sounds great. Okay. Abigail Iovine is a traditional midwife, mother of 10, and a passionate advocate for medical freedom who was raised with deep love for God and family. Yes, all 10 are hers, and yes, she has given birth 10 times an experience that profoundly shaped the way she approaches birth and care. Her journey into midwifery began after the birth of her fourth child, and while pregnant with her fifth, she famously searched how to not have a baby in the hospital. That was her Google search. That question set her on a new path after welcoming her first home birth with her fifth baby.

16:48She began formally studying midwifery in 2010, later becoming certified Dula in 2013 in attending birth soon after. Trained through a five year traditional apprenticeship under local elder midwives, she built her foundation on hands-on, relationship-centered care, and in 2018, she officially began serving families through cardinal birth midwifery, a family-centered autonomy-respected ministry that places real-life children and family needs at the heart of care. In 2025, she also founded the National Alliance for Traditional Birth Rights, and which we're going to talk a lot about today after we hear her back story, further expanding her advocacy for family-centered care and the preservation of traditional midwifery. You know I'm excited about that. I am, so what should we do now? We're going to take a break and hear from our sponsors, and we'll be right back. When we recommend something, we take it seriously. Enter Renatal. Research shows that through diet and supplementation, it is possible

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18:51www.winatal.com slash birding instincts. That's www.inatl.com to get this special offer with www.winatal and birding instincts. Labor can be challenging, but it does not have to be overwhelming and scary, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On that note, we want to welcome back as a sponsor, Christian Hypno-Berthing. I'm so delighted to be partnering with them again. Christian Hypno-Berthing app and faith-filled childbirth course have now helped more than 200,000 women experience more relaxed, confident, and faith-filled birth. So many of our listeners bliss have sent me testimonials or just messages after they use Christian Hypno-Berthing and how much it helped them during their labor. The app is used for relaxation practices and of course the faith-filled childbirth course is for childbirth education. Aaron, since we have relaxed talking to them, Taran has released a book this January called Faith Filled Childbirth, which has become a bestseller and went to number one in pregnancy on Amazon. So cool. Yeah, I feel so relaxed already just talking about them. So all of you should go to the Christian

19:56Hypno-Berthing.com and use the code bi50 for 50% off. 50% off. The monthly subscription to the Christian Hypno-Berthing app to redeem and all you have to do is download the app, open more, then settings, and then redeem your promo code. So go check them out. Check them out and have a joyous pregnancy. Hi, Abby. So great to see you. Hi, Bliss. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we are. Everybody knows that one we're talking about traditional midwifery. I get a little giddy. So so glad to bring you on and expose our fellow travelers to the work that you're doing because I think it's really important. We did read your bio, but it's always so awesome to actually hear from you kind of your journey and why you are feeling so passionate about taking some activism in this direction right now. Also, Abby, you know, you didn't really seek out Google searching for homework until your baby number five. So what took you so long?

20:59I didn't even know that midwives were still a thing 15 years ago. Homebirth was a little bit new in my area. You know, we didn't really, it just, I had no idea. Literally had no idea. It just popped out. And the Google search was a real thing. I literally had to not have baby in the hospital. I think I even had one of those incidents where a duelist talk about where they say someone tried to hire me as their midwife. I was that person once. I didn't understand. I was like, oh, I just have the duel to come here. You know, and then it, but my breasts weren't bad. My first were breasts were not, they weren't awful. They were just the standard augmented treated pretty poorly. You're a young parent, you know, it wasn't, it was demeaning. It felt wrong, like, you know, to your core. So I think as soon as I was pregnant, I hired the very first midwife I found. She's great. And she's the one who introduced me to the concept of community midwifery. I was like, oh, I think I want to, I want to do this. And she's like, well, you can't be a midwife. If you don't grow up as a baby midwife in the community, just doesn't work that way. You know, become a duel,

22:03become a childbirth educator, have people invite you in. And that's kind of how my path unfolded. You know, I started as a baby, like a lot of people did advocating where he has a duel, I got certified as a duel. When to all adults, small hosted workshops, while the midwives and the CPMs back then. And that was back starting in 2013. I started attending births on assisted births. I was really having the unassisted births community as an as an attendant. And then my first two apprenticeships, well, my only two apprenticeships were with a CPM and a traditional midwife. And I opened practice in 2018. Here we are. So what do you think led you to being so passionate about advocacy? Because you know midwives come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes in terms of like this. So what do you think it was about you that had you feel so passionate about sovereignty and and traditional liberty? Maybe because of your apprenticeship, that influence. But No, it was part of the influence, but I also felt a little railroaded. Back then I didn't recognize

23:07what was a very destructive hierarchy in the different types of midwifery, you know, in the different credentialing. The mean girl clubs really did exist, you know, still do that. And that didn't really push me towards advocacy, but it gave me a big mouth. I've always had a big mouth. And then what actually pushed me into this specific direction was that midwives in my state get investigated. I was investigated two separate times by the state of Pennsylvania and one spy, the state of New Jersey, not for outcome related things. And everybody at that point, we're kind of just keep your head in the sand, keep it quiet. I spoke pretty publicly about it. And then I started exploring the law in Pennsylvania and I discovered a bill. And it literally catapulted me into this space. Catalyst probably was me being investigated. It is really scary. It costs a lot of money. And then when I discovered the SB 507 bill in Pennsylvania, I recognized, I started hearing people coming from all over the place. And I instantly my pattern recognition

24:08picked up what you guys have all said, the pattern of eradicating the midwives state to state. It's just gotten worse like labor, you know. So I just started doing things. I didn't have a lot of direction. I just started contacting people. I just started making a lot of noise. And I was introduced to the right people in the federal government that I was able to, I mean, I just drift these plans day to day. I don't have a good, I mean, I have framework. I have a solid, a good person behind me pressing me. But most of this has been really organic as needed, you know, and it's worked beautifully. So I guess that the answer to that question is almost going to jail. Catapulted me into this life, you know. And what is the SB 507? Can you explain a little bit about what that one is? Yeah, SB 507 is, it's called the Midwifery Modernization Bill here. It is essentially introducing the CM credential. So that would be a direct entry credential that didn't require nursing degree, but it isn't institutional credential. This isn't really my space

25:12to get into the, there's a lot of conspiracy behind it. But essentially it, the pattern is proving that this is a replacement for direct entry midwifery. In other states where this has been introduced, it essentially eradicated traditional midwifery and options. It is an institutional credential. And we have a university here who is dishing out the credential, but they cannot work here. And in the bill, unfortunately, we are already illegal. It's further names, not only the title, and it distinguishes who may use the title, but it names the acts of basic midwifery care as a licensed act, essentially making it very easy to prosecute us for practicing medicine or midwifery without a license. It has not passed. It's tabled right now. So I have a project that, you know, we're going to do our best to push Pennsylvania in the right direction. The climate here has gotten awful. And it's, it's in proximity with this bill. In just

26:13of since the seven years it took for them to introduce this bill, we've had dozens of people report investigations. We had one area, one small area, two hospitals in the same area. They reported three separate practices that don't work together. And they were all investigated at the same time, some of them closed for practicing medicine without a license. So again, I was just just pointing out that in proximity to these bills often comes with, you know, that comes with increase in like the persecution and prosecutorial habits of the local DAs and the hospitals. In Pennsylvania, you don't need licensure. Is that what I'm hearing? We don't have licensure, but we fall under the category of practicing medicine without a license, unfortunately. Got it. Do you know who's behind SB 507, not the politician, but can you win? I don't know anything about bills. We did have somebody on. We had Ellie on

27:17the last year to talk about the legislative process. Still way over my head. But when you read a bill, can you tell from that who the lobbyists are, who the people are pushing the bill? Or is that sort of hidden? It's sort of hidden, but it's looking up. What's up? I'm confident that AMA is behind it, but I have actually not spent the time looking to see who their, their, their lobbyists are. It's probably public. If it's not public, that would make me a little bit even more unsure. But I do know that AMA has a significant hand in this because I've been told that the AMA would not budge on the nurse midwifery collaborative agreements in this bill. Meaning to me, they want a very tight reign on home births in the state because this is a non-home birth credential. And one of the things that they would not budge on is midwives doing home births. And I'm doing home birth. So I don't know what we have. Somebody is going to find out for us. Yeah, for people listening, the American Medical Association is basically just an industrial lobby.

28:18They do not represent the doctors of America. They do not represent the patients of America. They represent themselves and they're keeping their turf. And so, you know, they can always hide behind the guys of safety. They can say, well, we're doing this. We're protecting women from these nefarious midwives who are practicing under the radar, you know, this self-angred disment of their own behavior and stuff like that. But it's not the case. The AMA is purely an industrial lobby. They make most of their money from selling coding. They're not responsive to the doctors of America. To me, they are an evil group as just about every three or four-letter organization has become. They have lost their mission statement. If you read AMA's mission statement, it's very sweet. It's very nice. Nice mission statement. They don't follow it at all. And so I wouldn't be surprised at all that the AMA and ACOG are the two major groups that are pushing behind this, just knowing when I read the ACOG's literature, I can tell where they're going from. And, you know, they still stand by that they believe that the hospital or a hospital

29:19reddened birth center are the only places to be giving birth and that's still in their guidelines. So they are protecting their turf against the one or two percent of women who want to be outside of that thing and that's where they're putting their efforts. So anyway. Yeah, it's sad. I mean, we have physician groups here already. You have been told, you cannot be even perceived as collaborating with the local homeworks midwives or you lose your hospital privileges. That's the entire St. Luke system in my area. I can't even say, go to this OB. We need you to do a couple of things that OB will not see them. They will not, you can't date two people at the same time. They will not do it. You know what's interesting about that? That's racketeering. And I'll tell you, it's really interesting because I remember when I first came into practice, we were all independent doctors in those days. We weren't employees like they are now. And there was a lawsuit against some physicians in certain communities in the United States for collusion because one group would

30:21call another group and say, oh, what do you guys charge for a hysterectomy? And apparently, that's racketeering. So here you have a organization like hospitals and stuff saying, if you do this, you're going to lose your privileges. You know, I'm not for more government regulation. I hate lawyers and I'm not for all that stuff. But this has to be litigated. This has to be brought into the open. Doctors need to stand up and speak up when this happens to them. But they're afraid to do that. That's my experience that they're afraid to do that. You know, midwifery regulation is just a complete mess. It's a complete mess. And then if you go, like you said, and in this treatise that you put out that I've read and I'm going to put the copy of it in the show notes with your permission. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. You know, we have 50 states. We have basically 50 petri dishes doing different things. None of them. You know, there's maybe three or four of them that are very open to traditional military. And then the rest are it's a quagmire of

31:25your crap shoe to what you're doing. You know, or read that stew. I want to make sure that we define maybe Abby. You could define traditional midwifery because I know that there's not really as you're understanding or as you're advocating for it because I don't think there's a clear agreement across the board either about what do we mean by traditional midwifery, you know? Yeah, I mean, we've had this discussion a ton of times too. People don't know what we should refer to each other as or the practice or the act of as far as I'm concerned, and as far as my coalition is concerned, traditional midwifery is the act of midwifery care in the traditional holistic model. Anybody can practice traditional midwifery whether they're credentialed or not. You know, the the small nuances, whether or not somebody thinks traditional midwifery includes caring medication. I don't care about that argument. Traditional midwifery is non-medical midwifery is practiced usually in the community setting. It is the act of and it's, you know, so if somebody wants to call themselves a community midwife, you know, that is that for me. A CPM can

32:28practice traditional midwifery. A CNM can practice traditional midwifery. You know, it is just it's not allopathic. It is it is holistic and it is woman-centered, community-centered, you know, but it's the act of. It's not one person by definition. It's not even as I wouldn't even consider it a scope. I don't even think it's a definable scope. I think it falls into a category that each woman, as they choose their provider, gets to define a little bit for themselves, you know, but that is that. Traditional midwifery is the act. It's the care, you know. Great. So can a can a can a license practitioner like a CNM practice traditional midwifery? 100% yeah 100% yep absolutely. One of the things you mentioned in that paper was the effect or the influence of norm. The what's it what to stand for? The national association of registered midwives I believe. Yeah, you want to have you want to just go ahead and blow them out of the water if you want. Feel free. Yeah, I mean, so I chose not

33:33to certify as a CPM, you know, it is direct entry. I did do a lot of bursts beforehand and this is not my battle. There are people suing norm. There are people who have treasure troves full of information, but now basically has monopolized the entire traditional midwifery model. It's a registry, first of all, I have an uncomfortable feeling when I have to sit with the word registry, but norm intentionally was probably going to be a great thing. And we've seen in every state that they've become bent fellows with ACOG and ACNM. And we've we've seen them strategically since I started being interested in midwifery. So over a decade, we've seen them eliminate traditional midwives in the states that they choose to have licensure, they fight for licensure in. And then even even in their trainings and all of the books and all of the people that they're pushing out, we are watching. I'm literally watching these people lose traditional skills in favor of medical skills. So to me, Nars started out great. I don't know if it went defunct because it didn't really

34:36listen to the people, you know, it was a mean girls club when I was growing up, people giving each other signatures. We absolutely know that they have a really hard time holding people accountable appropriately. But to watch what they did in Hawaii and places like Florida, I mean Florida was the first one to go under. But my point being that norm has sold itself out. It is basically, what's the word I'm looking for? We fall out with your hostage with your captor. It is essentially Stockholm syndrome. Thank you. It is Stockholm syndrome, you know, with a registry. It's a registry. And the other side of this too is I'm not I'm not against credentialing and I'm not against accountability systems. And I'm not against good training. A lot of the traditional midwives don't hang their shingle out until they've had like 500 births. But one of the sad things that this has done and I see it with the CPMs is that it just pushes out midwives. It's starting to feel like a diploma mill to me. A lot of these women have a 28 years old and have the ego of someone who

35:38has no life experience, one child. And then we're none. I hate to say it or none. And not that they can't. However, traditional midwifery a long, long time ago was originally women who've had the babies. They are now elders. They understand the experience. The ego has been tamed. This is not just a career driven path. So a lot of the problems I have with an arm. And then I mean, you should definitely there's people I could definitely recommend you should talk to. Some midwives who are suing norm, you know, norm from what I've heard stole a lot of those the curricula ideas. And you know, there's you have to ask why there's such a small percentage of black midwives who pass. So it just it could have been put together better or probably maybe have listened to people along the way. But either way, it's I don't see it coming back up out of whatever this is. I think it got too far into bed with AC and I heard recently about a case in South Carolina. I think it was where a midwives who carries a license had a stillbirth was cleared by the administrative

36:44board and was still arrested. So why are we licensing the why are we registering the midwives if it offers us no protection. And it doesn't offer the same protection as a midwife in hospital or it'll be why it's not serving the people. It's eliminating our choices every single state. And I know that this is not norm. I know norm is not going. Let's write in these awful laws. But if you ask anybody who sat through that, the backdoor sessions, the you know, the agreements that you come to and negotiating, the I'll give you this if you give me that kind of thing, it's never going to be a win-win. It's never going to be a win-win because the you have to make bad fellows with them. It's just not going to work. So well, I think that the thing that you're pointing to is that we wanted to be accepted. And that's where we went wrong. Really? That's not integration. It's not integration. Yeah. So one of the elder midwives that I really love and respect we had her on recently, Adele Rose. And one of the things that she talks about is that,

37:46you know, they're trying to be accepted and integrated into the system in that way has only had us be a subservient kind of two obstetrics rather than being alongside. If you think about like acupuncture, you know, acupuncture is alongside other modalities. But it's not trying to be Western medicine. It's a separate way of managing some of the same things that they might manage with with a traditional Western medicine perspective. So I think that that, you know, and then you you have that coming from women who a lot of times just kind of make nice and try and figure out how to make everybody comfortable. And so what we've done is we've sold out, you know, we really have. It was absolutely and it contributed to a fracturing of this community significantly. I mean, if the CPM is the only nationwide and the national recognized credential for traditional midwifery

38:47and then all of us don't meet those standards. It literally puts us in the same place as it did with the CNM hierarchy. The CNM, I'm sure they probably want to participate and be friends and everybody, you know, gather around the campfire, but then they're seen as sleeping with the devil and then the CPMs, you know, they, and I see that fighting SB 507. The CPMs are literally going, you just shoot your mouth shut. You're going to ruin this for everybody. Yeah, that's the whole one. And the CNMs are yelling at me, how could you do this? We're trying to pass this bill. And that that's what we need to stop doing. The fractionated midwifery community is, but the NATBR, the whole point of protecting traditional midwifery is that it will actually help every single branch of midwifery, every single branch, get the freedoms, that's the goal, and the people, the right to choose them the way that they want, you know, say more about that so people can understand your thought process behind how it supports everybody. Yeah, so I started the coalition initially

39:50pushing forth federal initiatives to HHS and on protecting traditional midwifery as heritage and informed consent standards that need to be changed. But the point of that is, and I don't know how I, my brain just does these self-discovery things, recognizing that traditional midwifery is a heritage, it is heritage care. If it starts to become recognized as normal, the first thing that that does is change the standard of what is normally accepted. So for example, let's take an area like mine in the polka nose where all the care has been monopolized and we have these maternity care deserts. If home birth care and the choices that come with it, right, so that would be declining certain things, that would be going past 42 weeks. If this traditional model of care was the norm or accepted as part of the norm, pluralistic is what I'm looking for. It's equal, you know, we're on equal playing fields here. Then when someone walks into the hospital, their standards of reporting of informed refusal on consent, they all are already going to change

40:51because when we are in a state like mine where all the hospitals control the birth, all of the policy is the same. You have all this policy that everybody, their insurance companies and the hospitals. So now we have one area that has the same policies, the same 40 week policies that you know what I mean. So if, for example, midwifery care is recognized in my state, somebody who has to transfer in is going to change the way that they're treated. And then let's say someone who never even intended on a home birth, we normalize the standard of care and the right to choose the kind of care that we want. When someone walks into the hospitals as I'm declining vitamin K, it's no longer, it's no longer rogue. You know, if we normalize traditional midwifery care as an option. And this is the standard. So the standard is the problem that we're fighting against. The standard is there's only one way, only one way is the hospital way, the only one way is the institutions way, the insurance driven monopoly led way. If we change that standard to look at these

41:51five other ways, then for example, when we're working on new laws for CNMs and they're talking about their collaborative arrangements, there's no longer only one way to do acceptable midwifery. So we're hoping that we'll loosen the reins when we're trying to fight for easier collaborative arrangements. So when you open that door, traditional midwifery is accepted. This kind of care is normalized. It's on the same level playing field. We want insurances to pay for it the same way. It changes the standard by which everybody else has to go by. So that is the trickle down effect that I my vision is that, you know, in 10 years informed consent will look different in the hospital. Midwifery will be accepted in a different way state-to-state. Insurance companies will you know, they'll they'll no longer be able to deny claims based on cultural bias. All of that will have an influence on every branch of births, births, freedom, midwifery, and even what we choose in

42:52in hospital settings and with OB care. Yeah, it will change standards. Yeah. Everything you said is what what really needs to happen. Of course, we live in the real world, and these people are clinging to a model that has failed us miserably. We've talked about in the podcast a million times about how every time they come up with something new, outcomes get worse, and they don't have any self-reflection or self-awareness that that's what's happening. And the same people that are doing that are the ones that are sort of controlling whose silo you get put into. And there's never any mixing of the silos. And until we start maybe mandating from HHS or from the government mandating it downwards, putting pressure on these organizations to say, okay, we are now going to collaborate. We are now going to have medical students and residents spend time with home birth midwives. And part of their training is a three-month home birth rotation. And then having part of midwives who are training traditionally or through NARM or whatever else, okay, you're going to spend three months in labor and delivery at a hospital. And you're going to break down those silos because as I look at it right now,

43:57and you've given some examples, Abby, to me from before, that when a bad outcome, like a stillbirth occurs at home, then the midwife is subject to prosecution. I have never heard of a stillbirth that occurred in the hospital or anyone has ever been subject to criminal prosecution. And short of doing something like, you know, ridiculously the various, but never, it's the same outcome. Or a forced autopsy. That doesn't happen in the hospital, corrects, do? Yeah. When you have a stillbirth? Yeah, forcing the parents to do an autopsy on their baby. Do they force home parents to do autopsy? Yes, they did it to my baby that we lost. Yes, they said no, and they said you can't say no. Yes, because they were going to get as a coroner's case. Because it's a little extreme. Yeah, correct. Yeah, well, we've talked about the podcast before that one time where we had to transfer to that breach baby. And you stayed behind. I went and you

45:00were going to clean up and the police said you can't clean up until they got a call from the hospital saying that it was no longer a crime scene. Right. Right. So overcoming these obstacles is always been difficult. But Abby, I think based on the Zoom meetings I've heard with you and talking to you personally and stuff like that is you've got the energy. You seem to have the connections where we actually can make a potential dent into the monopoly that you so describe from from norm and EC and M and ACOG and even the American Academy of Pediatrics, I'll include in there. And of course, the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine, which is probably actually may very well be one of the other driving forces behind that bill about Spain. Right. Right. Because they want to think I was going to say I was doing what I just updated the NATBR website doing the math on some of these stats. You know, if one in four low risk women are going to

46:01have a C section, if only 40% of them chose integrated out of hospital midwifery care, we would be looking at up to 90,000 fewer primary cesareans in a year. How does that and not make people go the other interesting thing and I'm learning and I'm writing an article on it. I'm just going to give you like a sneak preview is that I really, really think if we look at the timelines of maternal health deaths in the United States and we were on trend with every other well-to-do nation up until the 80s and we were plateaued in the 90s and then we went really, really bad. Coinsides with the same decades, you know, it takes a good decade or two for things to really take a foothold, right. When Florida was the first state I believe that started eradicating midwives, I'm convinced that the eradication of the midwife, which includes a lot of things. It includes, you know, the freedom of choice. It includes self-reliance and childbirth. It includes a lot of things

47:04with the eradication of the midwife. I think that really might have been the catalyst to what is now our maternal health crisis or modern maternal health crisis because it used to be the crisis was a dealing with pathology, right, like hemorrhages, infections. Now the maternal health crisis and the leading causes of deaths are eye-atrogenic. I mean, you know, right. So I'm convinced and I'm going to do all the number crunching and I'm going to write a great article for you guys that midwifery was, if not the one of the major catalysts to the modern maternal mortality crisis and integrating midwives would be the fix 100%. I'm absolutely completely convinced. Imagine you're about a thousand four. Say that again. What would come though with 90,000 fewer primary cesareans annually for the babies, for the moms? Right now post-partum suicide is one of the number is I think it's the top leading cause of maternal mortality is suicide. That's a little bit scary.

48:07That is. You know, yeah. So what were you going to ask me? Sorry about that. Before you asked that was that's a number I have to look into. Yeah, it's really bad. Yeah, because that would amaze me if suicide was the number one cause of maternal mortality. Mental health. Well, we know that's a real problem. We know. Yeah, I'm sorry, please. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say I think they eradicated midwifery way before the 80s though. So the 70s I think is when Florida first started passing their licensure bills. Yeah, but so we have California. Oh, absolutely. I think in 1927, I think it was when that Kentucky midwife, she was a nurse midwife. I was looking at her stats the other day. Her stats were even better than the obese back then. So back then she was. What was her name? Yes, I look it up. It's a pretty great story. She's pretty famous. But again, the eradication in terms of regulation and licensure in the United States. Not so much the systemic eradication, but the

49:13what would we call that? The legislating away of the midwife at that time frame coincides directly with our plateau and our direct fall. And it really is, it's not just because you took away the actual people, some of it is, but when you took away the people, you took away women understanding their bodies, you took away all the fertility care and you took away the options, you know, and we turned it into one way. So to me, it was, it was a major catalyst and it would be the fix. You know what I will add to that as a major catalyst was prior to 1977, there was no such thing as a high-risk obstetrical specialist. Everyone was obese. They were just obese. Obes took care of diabetes. Obes took care of twins. Obes everything. In 1977, the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine was founded. And they since then have taken over pretty much everything regarding obstetrics. They run the medical schools. They run the residency programs. Obes are trained now to being unable to make a decision without consulting with a maternal fetal medicine specialist.

50:15Obes used to take care of diabetes and pregnancy. They used to take care of hypothyroid and pregnancy. They used to take care of arrhythmias. They used to take care of all that stuff. Then we had a specialty that decided they were going to take over it. So now Obes just become generalists. The maternal fetal medicine doctors, they're the ones that are protecting their turf. They really got a great gimmick going because they don't have to be on call. They generally worked nine to five. They spend all the time working with an ultrasound machine. They end up overusing ultrasound and color flowed up where and all the things that we've talked about in the podcast many times. But when you look at outcomes since 1977, we have more interventions, more cost per patient, more revenue generation, or sound comes. Interesting. And they have a very powerful lobby. Yeah. I don't think ACOG Farts without asking the MD Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine if that's okay. Our sponsor, Restorer of Roots, is a postpartum meal delivery started in 2022 by a home breathing mom of three a longtime listener and fellow traveler who

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52:23who they are and trust their body so that they can live joyfully, authentically, and in their full power. Girls who know offers online programs for girls ages 10 and up. These four-week classes are online, live, and led by girls who know mentors. And Stu and I are so passionate about this work. I'm sure you guys have heard us many times talk about how important it is to educate young girls. So that we can start to change the way that babies are welcomed into the world and how women experience birth. We have decided to partner with girls who know. This is not a paid sponsorship. It is a partnership to support the education and illumination of this message. Yeah, I don't think there's anything can be more important to change the future of Burling and the future of our children's lives than having a better understanding. And I also think that it's important for boys too. And maybe someday we'll have a boys who know, but please tell us a little bit more. Register a girl you love today so she can make empowered choices about her body and life. Go to girlswhoknow.com and use promo code instincts for 15% off your

53:29girls class. So Abby, I think it would be interesting for our listeners to hear about your connections and your invitation to come to DC because we know that story, but our listeners don't and I think that that's an important part of this moving forward and the excitement behind it. Well, it kind of happened on a whim. So I had just discovered SB 507 in the summer, this past summer, 2025, started working really hard on things, making a lot of noise. And just I just started contacting people. I love to talk to people. So I just started reaching out to everybody I could find children's health defense, maha reps, and somewhere along the way I got pinged to somebody named Leland. And he has been shepherding me into an out of and he's friends with Secretary Kennedy. So we would just touch base here and there about Pennsylvania. And I thought to myself, how do I make this bigger? Like if we could put something in Secretary Kennedy's hand, you know, get him to notice that this is my thinking was like maha and this whatever this movement is missed,

54:32you missed the mark, you got the food, you got the vaccines, you got the health freedom choices, what about midwifery and pregnancy and birth? Totally. You missed it, right? Yeah. So my thought was what could I put in his hands? It would make a difference. So I started with a position statement. And it was a direct call for his attention to SB 507 and then the broader picture of the eradication of the midwife. And I asked this person, I said, could you just as it was a joke? Can you give this to Secretary Kennedy for me as a Christmas present? And he said yes. And I was like, all right. So he puts me in an email chain full of HHS and dot gobs, Secretary Kennedy. And he says, hey, Bobby, look at this. And he writes this beautiful email about the medieval persecution of the midwife and the, you know, the conglomerates and, and Secretary Kennedy jumped right on it and said that he's interested. He wants to start with an, you know, the back and forth between these emails. But essentially, Dr. Dorothy Fink at the end of the emails invited me to to Washington to

55:33talk to them. I didn't know who just their, their office. I wasn't going to go. I was just going to do a Zoom meeting, but they were like, no, you really should come out. So I went to the office. And I just have to say that I, I'm not, I don't, I'm a, I have 10 kids. I don't travel like where am I going? I don't have a passport. I don't have a real ID. I'm a regular person. So I couldn't get into the HHS building and they knew that. So they graciously come outside. We walk in the freezing cold to the Bible museum and they sit me at the middle of this table. There's a Zoom camera on me. I found out later there was an investor on that Zoom call. And I'm surrounded by Secretary Kennedy's office. So that would be Admiral Brian Christine in uniform. Dr. Dorothy Fink, who is responsible for women's health in this country. She actually sat in as the, I guess the sit-in secretary while moral secretary Kennedy was being put in his position, Bridget DeVoy. So the entire health secretary's office was there. And we had a beautiful discussion about midwifery and the eradication

56:39of and the monopolization of maternity care. And it was not, it was not what I expected. I really expected the talking heads, folded arms, suits, you know, and that I would have to defend my position. And it was none of that. They asked me beautiful questions about things like reframing the way we do research. You know, we need better research. We talked about what midwifery care could do for postpartum depression. And that was not me guiding this conversation. That was them. You know, they were so interested in what changing midwifery care and recognizing it could do for the country as a whole. You know, it was a very light conversation. We were joking with each other. It was open. They knew so many things. You know, Dr. Admiral Christine, he was a neurologist, I believe, before this position, he was asking me, even things, you know, about sexual dysfunction and midwifery care. And just their broad view of how important this is was already, I didn't even have to plant

57:39that seed. They did not know the extent to which people are being persecuted. However, when I told them there are people sitting in jail strictly for practicing midwifery, they were appalled. So that was a humongous part of the conversation was the regulatory interference because midwifery should not be criminalized. So we left that conversation pretty much the request from them was to give me a request to give them requests. You know, that's where the briefing packet came from. Lots of data on how midwifery care is safer, the different complexities involved, you know, the C section rates, the breastfeeding rates, all that stuff. So after that meeting, is when I formed the NATBR's advisory panel that Dr. Stu is on that you've been sitting on a few times. And we put together that beautiful packet for them. And Secretary Kennedy answered the email himself and said, thanks Abigail, we want to support, which isn't like, hey, we're best friends now, but I'm totally fangirling over that moment because it's history, right? They're aware,

58:44they're aware, and they want to do something about it. So they're very dark forces pushed against them, like in everything that Secretary Kennedy is trying to do with food and air and water and everything else. If you look at his a lot of his statements, he references powers and principalities quite often. And that's what this is. That's what eight coges. That's what the AMA is. That's what MFM is. They are the principalities and powers. It's not just people. There's something very evil behind that. So, you know, after that, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think it's also important to know to talk about the criminalization of midwifery and that we are afraid and we go to jail and all of that. But I also think it's so important to really talk about because when I tell like a normal person, the fact that we have laws that limit citizens' rights to be able to choose. For example, in California, that if a woman is breached and she's in midwifery care, she can either have her baby at home by herself or go in and have a C section. Those are basically her rights.

59:49And people are like, what? So I think it's important for us to also keep reminding people, yes, we should be protected. We shouldn't be going to jail. But also our citizens deserve the right to choose where and with whom are with us and forcing a woman to do one of those extremes is ridiculous. And if you were talking about bodily autonomy and freedom and sovereignty, which I know a lot of them, how movement is, you were absolutely right. We missed the mark by not having this conversation included. So just the fact that you put that in their ear is such a big deal, you know. And listen, you also said when you describe those two choices, these people always pride themselves on the fact that they're doing their things because of safety. They're always using safety as a canard. Well, how is it safer to force a woman to deliver free birthing breached at home or have a C section than having a skilled practitioner who's trained in breached delivery, which is by the way supported by the maternal beetle medicine society and ACOG, not in the home setting, but breached delivery itself

1:00:50is evidence-based supported, everything about it. But you wouldn't know that if you talk to your typical ACOG practicing physician. Yeah, but no matter what, whether or not you think that you're legislating something for safety, that should never trump somebody's individual choice to do with their body, what they decide. They get to decide what and think I texted that to do the real test is if it protects liberty. It is the truth. It is the truth. But that's why the energy they are. Again, they don't care about that. That's not their goal. No, liberty is not the goal of these organization. No, money. It's money. Yeah, we have to remember that. That's what we're dealing with. And when you said you called it the principalities of powers, that would you call it? Yeah, so that's from Ephesians 612, actually, it's from the Bible, and it tells us that some of these dealings are not people that we're dealing with. We're dealing with principalities and powers, which really genuinely describes monsters, beasts like ACOG and the ACNM and secretary Kennedy talks

1:01:53about that a lot in a lot of the things he's fighting against is that these are powers. It's not just the one guy, you know, the powers and they control everything. But I wanted to go back and say to that when we're talking about constitutional freedoms, one of the things that the NATBR is doing is introducing, I'm trying to find, again, I found the right people. I got my foot in the door. I'm going to go and find the right people in every state and help them introduce first freedom framework into their legislation. I had a friend who was going to see the governor and she took with her and I think I don't know if I said to you, Dr. Sue, a proposed amendment change for Florida. I wrote the whole thing out for them from the NATBR and the surgeon general loved it. So, I don't know where that's going to go. Well, he's a good guy and also, I mean, I don't know where you find the time of being a midwife and having 10 kids to do what you're doing. I'm always impressed with you, Abby, when you when you when I put the baby on my back and I type things and I'm, you know what I mean? It's

1:02:55always going how women have always done it, right? Can you keep saying NATBR? Will you break that down for us just so that other people know what you're going to say that? The national alliance of traditional birth rights. Earth rights is two words. So, that really speaks to traditional birth rights, the women who do the work and the women who choose it, you know? And the, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of the Alec birth freedom bill, the framework for that is brilliant. So, my goal is to introduce that to as many people and as many states as I can. So, the Alec, Alec is the American Executive Legislative Council. And they wrote, you don't remember when it was, they wrote a birth freedom bill. You just typed the words, A-L-E-C, birth freedom bill and it will become up for you. And I don't think it has success, it's never been successfully introduced anywhere, but it is brilliant. And it represents our constitutional rights to choose,

1:03:56it represents the right to work, it represents the right for birth centers to be free from certificate, you know, that expensive, all that stuff. It is beautiful, it is brilliant. So, that is one of my goals is to use my secret backdoor access to whoever that might be, to find the right people and introduce this everywhere. And we're going to start with Pennsylvania. So, in Pennsylvania, we have found the most incredible attorney and lobbyist and we are going to push real hard to get some major changes made because even if SB 507 doesn't pass, the fact that they've monopolized the area so bad and we have maternity care deserts and the investigations are picking up, we can't just sit on this, the status quo is not okay if I'm already illegal, you know. So, we're going to work on Pennsylvania and hopefully that the website gives people the opportunity to send me an email if you want some framework to try to introduce in your own state. And I'm happy to help open those doors to anybody who wants

1:04:57to give it a shot, you know. That's the best thing that they can do. Yeah. That's great. I think that just got an email from somebody in Kansas, they're trying to pass legislation and I was like, oh, so I'll make sure that they reach out to you as well. Shoot me an email, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I can speak passionately, but when it comes to politics and legislation, it's like not. It's not like it's either. I'm just going to things and then I find the right people and I say, hey, look at this thing. This is important thing and so far for everybody has really been a passion project. All of these wonderful people and have been involved, I haven't had to push any buttons. I haven't had to beg. You know, so the people are there. The framework is there. The time is now, you know, so Abby, you know, one of the things that I often share with people when I'm in intimate space with them, like mentorship and stuff like that is when the timing is right, when God is supporting the thing that it is that you are doing, it is easy. You're in

1:05:58the flow and that's what's happening right now. And you know, I always say that like it's really not about me. It's about that. I'm being utilized for something that's important and that's what I am seeing is it. It does feel like the right time politically for you to step in and do that, but also like there's other things that are in the works here that are absolutely absolutely. And those other things, by the way, I mean, if Abby was doing this all by herself, you eventually you'd get worn out or beaten down. But what you've done Abby is brilliant because you've reached out across the country, maybe even across the world, I don't know, but across the country. And now we have this whole group where not everybody has all day, every day to do something, but between all of us, we are going to build up something that's a little more powerful than when one person is trying to fight Goliath. Yeah, totally. And that's when midweds need to stop biting each other in the back, you know, because we are much more able to make a difference and move

1:07:01things forward when we are all on the same team and supporting one another. And everybody can have their own agendas. You know, the certified nurse midwives are going to have their own necessary agendas. The birth center owners are going to have their own necessary agendas. And that's fine and great. And we all need to stay in our lanes, but also share the road a little bit, right? So if I got my foot in the door and everybody comes in and we get positioned in the right way, and then, you know, let's say in the future, agendas has a midwifery panel, the midwifery advisory board of their own. And then everybody can do their own jobs. All of the other things will fall into place, you know, but the bottom line should be that every single person can support the concept that I have the constitutional right to choose how I have my baby and with whom, and that midwifery should not be criminalized. Two very simple concepts. Yeah. Let me read this from your brief. This is from a brief that Abby sent me and sent to a lot of people called protecting traditional midwifery as heritage care, a federal policy brief. Now, I like

1:08:01in the idea that you want to call it heritage care, kind of like what governments do to like old buildings. They declare them a national monument or a national heritage, which means they get a plaque and they can't be torn down and they can't be remodeled and you can't be raised. It's up a lot, or rights, doesn't it? Right. Protective rights, yep. So that's how I like and what we'd like to see happen to traditional midwifery. And you say, protecting traditional midwifery as heritage care is not merely a policy adjustment. It is a necessary correction to systems that have centralized power, displaced families, and overridden biological and moral design in the name of control. The record before HHS shows that traditional midwifery restores balance by honoring the intentional design of pregnancy and birth, strengthening informed consent, and returning stewardship. I love your use of language, by the way. Thank you. A maternal and infant health to families and communities. In doing so, it challenges the

1:09:02entrenched principalities and powers, legal institutional and financial that have normalized coercion, over-medicalization, and the erosion of parental authority. Safeguarding traditional midwifery affirms that health is cultivated through trust, nourishment, continuity, and respect for natural processes, not through domination or fear. Federal recognition of traditional midwifery as heritage care offers a decisive opportunity to realign maternity policy with constitutional principles, ethical medicine, and the biological design that sustains life across generations. Full stop. Beautiful. Yeah. I think they loved it. How could they not? I know, it's the truth. Yeah, it's the truth. Right. Right. Wouldn't it be nice? I've said this many, many times. Wouldn't it be nice for HHS to get two hours of public television time and bring in the leaders

1:10:03of ACOG, the leaders of the internal fetal medicine. I'm looking on it. And asking, and then people like us, and sitting on the panel, and having discussion so the American people can hear the arguments. Instead of he said that, and she said that, and that's misinformation, and he's an anti-vaxxer, and he, let's just sit down together and do it, but people in power rarely want to do that, because they really, I think they have a hard time defending their position. Well, things are frondling in all, in all kinds of ways. And so this is the time that we need to be taking a stand for what's right. Yeah. Then you go on by the way in this and you listen. Yeah. Well, when we, when we request that panel, if we request that, that symposium, then I will, I will see if I can't get them to do it. I was in their news station, their public news station in DC, you know, I'm going to, I'll pull out every stop. Give me the ideas. I'll tell them, you know, now he can strategies firm knows what we're doing. I'm going to utilize them. These are all DC

1:11:07area people. So maybe we can actually do that. That's right. I would, I would, I would send an open invitation to Sandra Brooks, the CEO of ACOG, or Stephen Fleischman, the president of ACOG, to come to our, come and join in. Let's, let's have a conversation. We should do that. I'm going to put you in touch with Leeland at some point so we can have a conversation about how we can make this work. I bet you we could pull it off. Well, I would look forward to it now that I'm starting to feel physically better. I really look forward to 2026 as being that year that was just subscribing where everything seems to be coming around in jelly and, and things are beginning to change. I just want to add for people that, if you want to read this, this will be in the show notes. But Abby goes on to list 18 summary of recommendation, federal actions. I won't read them here, but they're, they're real bullet points of things that we want to see happen as opposed to this vague. I love that you made it definitive. You put it on paper. This is what we want to see. I'll just read one of them. Issue a public health statement from HHS, recognizing traditional midwifery as protected cultural and health care

1:12:10heritage, practice in the US. Incorporate recognition of traditional midwifery into formal HHS, maternal health policy guidelines, and frameworks. Once they do that, then you know, everything else falls into place. Right? That's my goal was line it all up for them over the plate. You can't mess them up. You can't mess it up. It's brilliant. The next step is I'm working on a submission that goes in Friday for the Religious Liberties Commission through the Department of Justice. In March, they have a hearing on social services and health care and religious liberties. And I have testimony from Amish families who are abused in the hospital. But basically, I'm going to offer them the same thing, the same framework, same context that we are experiencing religious liberties, violations regularly in the hospital and through this restriction of midwifery care. So that's the next step. You got to go with every outlet. You can't just hit them in one spot, right? Everywhere. No. And again, there are some people that are not influenced by

1:13:12biblical or religious things. But ultimately, they matter. That's how our country's founding is based upon it. It's it's interesting that you start your whole treatise or your brief with the story from Exodus 1. Yeah. Right. Which with permission, I'll just read that little paragraph. Is that okay? Yeah, I just want to say to you to your comment, we may not all have biblical or religious organizational like faith. But like in when we were able to back in the day, which we can't do in California anymore, when we were able to opt out of vaccines and stuff for our children, that was considered a religious belief. So sometimes you may not be Amish or, you know, any of those things, but your belief system should be honored, whether it is from the Bible or not. That should be something across the board that goes into the same thing that I was saying about people having bodily autonomy. It's a belief system. And that should be recognised. Yeah. And in

1:14:18the 250th year of our country, it was founded on religious belief, a Judeo Christian beliefs. And there is something you don't have to believe in that. That doesn't necessarily make it untrue. That's what the country was founded upon. Right. And because of those beliefs, you have freedom to not believe in it. You have freedom to believe in a different religion. You don't in other countries that don't have that founding. You don't have those choices. So this is that this is just a very cool story. And it says, Shifra and Pua stand as powerful examples of courage and moral resistance, Pharaoh fearing the growing Hebrew population ordered these midwives to kill every newborn Hebrew boy at birth while allowing girls to live. A state sanctioned genocide aimed at controlling and eradicating a vulnerable people. But the midwives feared God more than they feared the king. They refused the command, letting the boys live. And when questioned, cleverly explained that Hebrew women keepers too quickly for them to intervene. Because of their obedience to God over human authority,

1:15:19the Lord bless them. And because the midwives feared God, feared God, he gave them families. Yeah. And whether or not you believe in the historical Bible or the story as just a story, midwives are here to protect women and babies from the powers and the principalities. It's exactly what we see today in the hospital. You know, it doesn't matter to me what people's religion is or is not. What they do in the hospital to the moms and the babies, you can't deny that that's adversarial to everything. Just the fact that when you strip away the golden hour, it creates a human who is incapable of normal love and capacity. We are absolutely whether you believe in God in the devil or not, we are fighting an adversary. It's not just a system, it's not just a person, it is an adversary. And today, every midwife, that is your job.

1:16:23Protect the women and babies from the state. And it rings so true today because we're all sitting here lying to those investigators, aren't we? They lied to Pharaoh, they risk death and imprisonment for the sake of those women and those babies. And that is today's story. It really is. Yeah, and you know, to me, I see that like rippling out into our culture as a whole, right? Like we are, we are the foundation of the beginning of life and the beginning of, we just did a podcast a couple of weeks ago with Mary Jackson, who's from AFA and talks about like the imprints and all of the ways that it affects who we are as human beings moving forward. And it's very easy to look out into the world and see that we're very sick. Not just physically, but spiritually, emotionally, you know, and it has to start at the beginning. It has to start. We have to be willing to take a big statement and a stand for the future generation of our people. This is not just about. And I don't think you need, I don't think you need to study because it'll never be done

1:17:25that much of the chaos and the mental health issues and stuff that we have right now, we're really interesting to look back at those people that are really suffering and go through their birth story. Yes, it would. Absolutely. It would be really enlightening to do that. I don't know if that's a project that can ever be done with any sort of objectivity, but it would be really curious to look at people who are incarcerated, look at people who are in mental health, and then go back and look at their birth story. And compare that to people who are, you know, seemingly by our societal standards well adjusted and living a fulfilling life. It's hard to be an individual well adjusted in a really sick society. We're all like, you know, it's all a microcosm, you know, we're all together and we're all affected. So even if you are having a protected home birds at this point, it, you know, we're still living this society. But yes, it's important, which is what we're saying. Very important. Abby, you're doing great work. And I just am so glad that you're out there in the world,

1:18:31passionate about making these changes. And it's a start, you know, we don't know what the outcome will be, but it's a beautiful start. And you know, you're putting the words traditional midwife in the brains of people who who influence a lot of changes in this country. And things do move slowly, but this is the way that we start is taking a stand. Yeah. And you're a perfect example of somebody who's super busy and could definitely have made a lot of excuses. That's to why she couldn't hear the outcome. I'm really good at excuses when people want me to leave the house and do things. But you can't just sit on these things, right? Like I can't all day long. I find something new to do with something else that has to be fixed or done or written or or designed something, you know, so momentum is good. You know, people support it. Sharing the website is really important. Okay. Donations are great because right now I fund everything myself. That doesn't include

1:19:34like marketing and the website and the legwork and the little bits I pay people to help me out. And as it gets bigger, you know, it's it's definitely going to have to be a public funded kind of program. But right now, I think the most important thing is awareness. I love when people reach out to me and tell me about the laws in their state. People can join as a member for $10 a month. That would absolutely all of it would just support what we're doing. They have, you know, they would get money off merchandise and opportunity to apply for the panel. But really, oh, I think awareness is probably the most important thing. Start knowing and talking about it eloquently. You know, it's real easy to go like midwives are in jail. You know, I've had those conversations and people will be like, why should have been licensed? So learning how to have those conversations responsibly and start talking to people about it. That's probably the most important thing in my opinion. The petition, we have the petition that's got almost 100 signatures in 12 or 13 days. It's just a petition, but it's also not just a petition because if we can't get the kind

1:20:37of numbers I know we have. I know we have 200,000 people out there who hate the way they had their baby. I promise you to sign it. It's proof. The public speaks. Share the articles. Really, the publicity, which Dr. Sue, that's why I think what your idea is brilliant is absolutely brilliant. Put it on TV. That's the most important thing to me is that people start saying, I don't want this anymore. Super important. Otherwise, just keep telling me I'm doing a good job and maybe offer to make me something on Canva because I really suck it. But I will go on today and I will become a member because I didn't even know that that was an option. So I will be sure to do that. And I think that in addition, obviously getting this podcast out and putting everything in the show notes, we can highlight some stuff on our social media as well in terms of the petition and membership and the website. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I wish one of that people. The website is very

1:21:38simple. It's n-a-t-b-r.org. N-a-t-b-r.org. And you also have a Facebook page. It looks like the word natural verse. Nice. Very clever. Then you have a Facebook page. Protect traditional midwifery. Do you people? Is that still are you still using that? It's most of my- so because my business page has over 5,000 followers, most of the stuff gets posted on my business page. Which is? And you see our Facebook page. That's Cardinal Burs, Midwifery Service. My business practice. Thanks, Abby. Yeah, so much for coming and speaking with us. We'll do our very best to use our platforms to get this message out far and wide. I love it. Can't wait to see you guys in person. Sometimes soon come back to PA and I'll make sure I'm there. Next your time and I'll keep you updated. I'll keep you updated on what's next. Yeah, if you can get your community together and want to organize some sort of gathering for tea, re-teaching breached, I'll come out and we do their two-day seminars out there. I would

1:22:40love to come and work in the Amish community out there. Yeah, that would be great. And we'll let's look on with. Okay. We'll do a road trip. We'll take hope and the beast. Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Abby. Yes, you're so welcome. Thank you, guys, and I'll hopefully see you at the very next panel meeting. If not, maybe one after that. Okay, great. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to the Burning Instincts podcast. We know that we all leave busy lives, so we are extremely grateful that you give us an hour of your time to treat. If you enjoyed this episode, please share and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for the latest updates and reviews to help others join us. You can find Dr. Stuart, Burning Instincts, and bliss at Burning Bliss Midwifery on Instagram.