Subcommittee Update

Big things are happening in Iowa!!

SUBCOMMITTEE MEETINGS
We had our first subcommittee meeting yesterday (Monday). Representatives Mascher (our sponsor), Willems (Mt Vernon – a supporter) and Kaufmann (Wilton – a supporter) are on the subcommittee.

The meetings work like this: everyone interested in the bill sits around the table. The bill is introduced and then everyone with interest gets to make a statement/ask questions. The room was packed! We had members from Iowa City and Des Moines there to support midwifery licensure, including a nurse, midwives, and homebirth parents. While the medical lobby emphatically stated is opposition to our cause, they didn’t have much in the way of facts or data to back up their opinions. We did! Overall, the feedback of our performance at Monday’s meeting was that it went amazingly well and that FOIM has a very professional and convincing presence. THANK YOU TO THE FOIM MEMBERS WHO REPRESENTED US ON MONDAY!

Because so many people were there, a second meeting to continue the discussion has been scheduled for TOMORROW MORNING!

MEDICAL OPPOSITION
The IMS was spooked by our amazing performance and now has doctors flooding legislators with anti-midwifery phone calls and emails. We need to continue showering our reps with advocacy and information.

Although the Iowa Nurses Association initially declared they were against our bill, they have changed their position to Undecided. This is a huge victory for us! It shows that the medical community is not united in their opposition and gives hope that other medical groups will be open to if not supporting us, remaining neutral on our bill.

“SCOPE OF PRACTICE REVIEW”
Our sponsor is beginning to get strong pressure from the medical lobby to slow down the progress of our bill. This afternoon, she gave us the option of holding a Scope of Practice Review Committee instead of proceeding with the bill.

She is thinking that although things look positive with the subcommittee, she will probably not be able to get the bill out of committee by next week, with so little time to educate people on the committee, and with so much "poisoning" as she put it by the doctors. The committee would be made up of stakeholders (a doc, a cnm, someone from public health, a member of our group, etc.) and that they would be charged with studying the issue and making a recommendation to the entire legislature at the beginning of the next session.

This is what happened a decade ago, the first time a licensure bill went to the capitol. What happened last time is that the bill never got picked up again in the following session after the SOPR committee recommended that the IA legislature license CPMs.

Her perspective is that with a SOPR, we would be able to keep the issue alive and have info and education going on continuously throughout the interim time between now and January, and that we would be on a stronger footing come January to advance our bill all the way through. She's thinking that if it were to go to committee and then die, we'd have a harder time coming back to it in January.

However, there are significant drawbacks to SOPR. First, we couldn’t assure that midwifery advocacy would have equal representation on the board. It could likely be that the board would have all medical people and one lone midwifery advocate. We could be outnumbered and end up with a recommendation AGAINST licensure. Additionally, SOPR would take the wind out of our sails in terms of momentum. Right now we are making great progress and are very strong. This is clear from the reaction we are getting from the medical community. They’re scared. This would give them time to organize and advance a campaign against us. This would remove the sense of urgency felt by legislators having to focus their attention on lots of issues. Plus, we have shown how strong our grassroots support is: we won’t have any trouble keeping the issue “alive” if it doesn’t make it out of committee this session because our supporters are so great!

Therefore, this evening the Steering Committee agreed unanimously to reject SOPR and keep the bill going. We are attending the subcommittee meeting tomorrow morning so that our bill will be PASSED by the subcom. TOMORROW! (We hope!) Once it gets to committee (a much larger group with some undecided and opposing reps), we will see where we stand in terms of support. If we can get it passed out of committee, WE WILL!! If we can’t, we can let the bill simply lie dormant and then tackle it again next January. In the meantime, we can develop our membership and get our message out!

THE NEXT WEEK IS CRUCIAL. If we go to committee, we need to match and EXCEED the medical anti-midwifery lobby in terms of emails and phone calls to legislators. WE (the steering comm.) are COUNTING ON EVERYONE to make that happen! More specific information will come after the subcommittee meeting.

RALLY DAY UPDATE
We’re getting a lot of questions about a rally day at the capitol. We hope to hold one later in the session. The reason we can’t pin down a day is that (as you can see) these meetings are scheduled at a moment’s notice. We don’t yet know if or when our bill will be heard in committee. We may not know until the day before it happens. It’s tricky to coordinate a large event with such short notice. But be assured that this is a goal and we want to show legislators in person the enthusiasm of our group!! In the meantime, take that rally energy and call your legislators with it! They’re very easy to talk to and a phone call makes a huge impression.

OVERALL
We have a ton to celebrate!! This may be the busiest week of our year in terms of legislative activity, so the list will be extra active with updates on what’s happened and what you can do. Please consider each call to action. The only reason we are where we are is because members are getting legislators interested and informed. Let’s keep it up!!

QUESTIONS, ETC
Email Lauren (laurendoula@yahoo.com) or your chapter leaders with questions, concerns, ideas, etc.