The Fellowship of the Bill – Part 3

This is the continuing story of Michigan’s nine-year journey toward a law to license Certified Professional Midwives. The first installment of the story is HERE.

Part 3

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About this panel

The chronology of the Fellowship is worthy of a document of its own (Frame 1). Originally a committee of the Michigan Midwives Association, it gradually moved to admit a consumer member from the Friends of Michigan Midwives. In order to present a unified front in Lansing, the group eventually changed its name to the Coalition to License CPMs: Families & Professionals for Safe Home Birth.

After the bill sponsor was identified and the bill introduced, the Fellowship began the never-ending task of meeting with legislators in order to educate them on the issue of out-of-hospital midwifery in Michigan (Frames 4-8). The questions posed in these frames are ones that the Fellowship was often asked. Are you wondering whether the characters shown represent specific Michigan legislators? Perhaps. More interesting, though, are the Michigan-specific items in each frame:

• Frame 5. The little brown jug – although here it is blue.
• Frame 6. Ted Nugent concert poster.
• Frame 7. Vase of Black-Eyed Susans.
• Frame 8. Mounted deer head. The Coalition remarked that a legislator’s party affiliation could be inferred from the presence or absence of mounted animal parts.

The background for each of these frames is a bona fide space in Michigan’s Anderson House Office Building, in which the Fellowship passed many productive hours.

 

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