NZ's Midwifery Council wants to stop using the words 'mother' and 'baby' for mothers and babies.

The wise women of New Zealand’s Midwifery Council have decided that the words mother’ and ‘baby’ are superfluous to requirements.

We have no idea, of course, if these wise women are actually women, or just identify as women. The only way we have of knowing, according to trans activists and trans advocates, is if we inspect their genitals. Otherwise, as their logic goes, there really is no way of knowing. And they actually say this seriously.

A word to the wise that the word ‘wise’ used in the context above is not to be taken seriously.

For the last four years, the Midwifery Council has worked on revising its Scope of Practice, at a cost in excess of NZD$400K. The final result, after years of expensive consultation, was to remove the words ‘mother’ and ‘baby’ and replace them with the word whanau (a Māori word meaning family, including extended family).

Why did these wise women, in a field where mothers and babies are not only their bread and butter but their whole raison d’etre, deem that was a wise thing to do? Because they wanted to be inclusive of the estimated six women a year in NZ who give birth to babies under the guise of being men.

And in their quest to be inclusive they’ve decided that excluding the rest of womankind is fair and reasonable. Only the narrowest of opportunities was given to stakeholders to express what they might think about being erased from Midwifery’s language. Instead, the Midwifery Council lengthily engaged and consulted with those who celebrate this sort of erasure, who in their turn engage and consult with those who celebrate this sort of erasure, too.

In the video below, where I chat with practising midwife and all-round courageous woman for speaking out, Deb Hayes, the names George Parker, Elizabeth Kerekere, and Jaimie Veale will be mentioned. This is what I know of them in brief -

George Parker, who seems to have heavily influenced the decision to erase the words ‘woman’ and ‘baby’ in the Scope of Practice, is a woman who identifies as non-binary. George Parker has published several articles with a trans and non-binary focus, including three in this list with the word ‘perinatal’ in the title accompanied by the word ‘transgender’. Those three articles have the names Elizabeth Kerekere and Jaimie Veale named as contributors on them.

Elizabeth Kerekere is a lesbian and LGBTQ activist who focusses her activism on the TQ almost exclusively, is also an ex-Green Party MP with bullying claims made against her, and a scholar. She has vigorously claimed for some time that pre-colonial Māori had diverse gender identities, despite stating in her own thesis that there was no evidence of this. Her claim is equally vigorously disputed by other Māori.

Jaimie Veale is a man who says he’s a woman. Until recently he was the president of PATHA - Professional Association of Transgender Health Aotearoa. He remains on the executive of PATHA, but is now also a member of the Global Board of Directors of WPATH – World Professional Association of Transgender Health. WPATH recently included men with a eunuch fetish under its trans umbrella. Jaimie Veale was also the author of ‘Love of Oneself as a Woman’.

Those three are not the only ones who have had either direct or indirect influence on the revised Scope of Practice, of course. But they are the ones mentioned in the video, and are an example of the calibre of those who have held sway with the Midwifery Council’s decision to remove the words ‘mother and ‘baby’ from its language.

After watching this video, Jill Ovens, co-leader of the Women’s Rights Party and former co-leader of the Midwives Union, has added this –

“The scope of practice is more than guidelines. It is a legal document that defines the areas of responsibility of registered health professionals. This defines what each registered health professional can safely practice and against which they can be held accountable. The Midwifery Council has the power to confirm the Annual Practicing Certificate of all midwives and to deny them the right to practice or to define restrictions on their practice which goes on their APC. This is why the Scope of Practice needs to use very clear language. When I was with the Midwives Union, we had a number of midwives go up before the Midwifery Council usually as a result of complaints by the women under their care. The system is linked to the Health and Disability Consumers Act and is designed to protect the public, but also protects registered health professionals as it defines the boundaries of their regulated practice. That is why this is so important to get right. The Women's Rights Party is heavily involved in this, as well as Mana Wāhine Kōrero, but our concern is more about how this scope of practice takes away from the women-centred midwifery practice for which NZ is a world leader, thus removing a woman's right to control her pregnancy, childbirth experience, and care of her newborn.