Kōrero: Women’s movement

Midwifery and feminism were a good fit. Feminists believed that women needed control of their own fertility and pregnancies, and that women understood each others' needs better than men. Midwives were more likely to favour less medicalised births, and generally provided a less authoritarian service than doctors. In 1983, when Parliament began considering legislation that would reduce midwifery to a branch of nursing, Save the Midwives was set up.