The Fellowship of the Bill – Part 5
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 5
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The continual contacts required to maintain support in the Legislature turned the Fellowship and the larger birth community into merciless Polyannas (Frame 1). A certain amount of weariness was occasionally discernible in staffers’ greetings upon their discovery that the voice on the other end of the phone was yet another plea to support the midwife bill.
The long journey began to tell upon the Fellowship (Frame 2). Most of its members were practicing midwives, in itself a hard occupation to reconcile with family life. Responding to frequent sudden requests to appear in Lansing, formally dressed and well-spoken, made for a heavy burden, especially as progress appeared stalled, thanks to Rep. Sarumon’s refusal to schedule a committee hearing (see Part 2). However, Michigan term limits do occasionally work to the advantage of those doing Noble Work, and a double strategy ensured the bill’s safe crossing (Frame 3) to a committee hearing: First, Rep. Sarumon was termed out of the House. Poof! Second, the bill sponsor wisely arranged for it to be assigned to a different committee in the new session.
The bill promptly received two hearings, at which ACOG proclaimed that the legislation did not conform to the (as-yet-undefined) US-MERA standards. Nevertheless, in November 2015, the bill passed out of committee (Frame 4). The Fellowship’s satisfaction with this success was nothing compared to the jubilation after the bill’s 79-25 (bipartisan!) vote on the House floor. Lobbyist Jean proclaimed that such a day did not come often in the life of a public affairs consultant, which explains her declared intention to commemorate the event with a tattoo on a Body Part to be Named Later (Frame 5).
Any success effected by sustained exertion should be followed by celebration and repose. Unfortunately, those pleasurable activities are inevitably followed by mass thank-you note writing (Frame 6).
Mama's Got a Plan: 