House Reconsiders Midwifery Bill, Sends To Senate
Air Date:02/09/2011
By Kealey Bultena
The House of Representatives has passed a bill that registers midwives and allows them to assist with births planned outside of hospitals.
Republican Roger Hunt says South Dakota should support safe options for labor and delivery.
"We need to ensure that those families that wish to have out-of-hospital home births have properly credentialed, properly trained, professional certified midwives," Hunt says. "This is to enable many of these families who would still have home births, with possibly untrained people to assist them in the births, to have quality protection, and that’s part of our responsibility as a legislative body."
This is the same bill that failed in the House Tuesday, when it gained a majority vote but didn’t meet the two-thirds support needed. Speaker Val Rausch says that was a mistake and the bill just needs majority approval.
The measure passed Wednesday 37 to 32.
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