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TMZ is reporting that the American Medical Association or AMA, and more specifically the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is issuing a decree against various types of home birth and midwifery, aimed specifically at Ricki Lake.

Why Ricki Lake? Well,this year, Lake helped produce a documentary about the birth industry called The Business of Being Born. The documentary centered around various insiders in the home birth world as well as a few doctors who doubt the efficacy and safety of home births and midwives. The conclusion of the film was, essentially, that the birth industry is being run like a business and women are suffering for it. Infant mortality is very high in this country, higher than in nations that support home birth and midwife options. Countries highly accepting of home birth and midwifery have lower infant mortality rates, lower incidences of cesarean sections, lower birth costs, and generally better conditions for pregnant moms.

Lake’s argument is nothing new, of course. In the film, the director interviews Ina May Gaskin, a famous home birth advocate since the sixties who, over the course of her career, has assisted in the home-based births of thousands of women.

My older brother and I were both born in home-based births and, since I was a child, have heard about the horrors of the medically-controlled birth industry, including the views of Ina May Gaskin. Now, I’m not that old, but am still old enough to know that this was an issue that’s not recent since I was hearing about the ineffective birth industry more than twenty years ago. Now, as an adult, the issue is being revisited by the likes of Lake and Naomi Wolf who, in 2003, published a scathing indictment of the birth industry in her book Misconceptions. Both Wolf and Lake come to similar conclusions: medical intervention is nice, but is not necessary for all women. Home-based birth and midwifery are effective, cheap, and emotionally and physically beneficial to women with normal pregnancies.

Not surprisingly, the AMA has a beef with home births. Think of it this way: the AMA is an organization of doctors that has far too much influence on the medical industry. The AMA is known for opposing many ideas, not for the general health of the populace, but as a self-preservation method. The AMA is interested mostly in the bottom line of doctors, not the health of Americans.

Home births obviously cut into the profits of OB/GYN’s. The average hospital birth can involve steady drips with drugs, a delivery by a doctor, and medical intervention that often leads to cesarean section births rather than preventing them. A cesarean will net the he hospital and OB several thousand dollars extra. While a home birth with a qualified midwife might only cost a few thousand, a vaginal hospital birth will be twice that, and a full medical birth with a pitocin drip, epidural, and cesarean intervention may run up to $8,000 or more.

The AMA’s resolution states that they are trying to write and pass legislation (PDF warning) affirming their belief that hospital births are the safest, the same argument they’ve been giving for years. What they fail to mention in their resolution is the high infant mortality rate that is a very possible result of the large number of hospital births in our nation. The United States ranks 163rd in the work in infant mortality, and nations like Luxemborg, Cuba, Singapore, and South Korea have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. Is hospital birth really safer with numbers like these?

Lake shot back at the AMA report, telling the AP, quote

“It’s scary that both (the ACOG and the AMA) have sort of targeted me,” Lake told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And, you know, I’m all about choice. This is not unlike the abortion issue. I am pro-choice when it comes to childbirth and choices in birth. Home birth was around long before hospitals were taking over — and I just think women need to know (the information) so that they can make the best choice for them.”

The recent mainstream acceptance of the sport of mixed martial arts, known as MMA, recently had a big breakthrough. On Saturday, the first primetime MMA event aired on CBS. Elite XC Saturday Night Fights introduced the primetime broadcast television world to the controversial sport.

Parade magazine said the game should be banned. The world of “legitimate” sports has long criticized the sport for not actually being a sport and more controlled brutality. Fans, however, mostly young men, flock to MMA which makes a sport out of kicking, punching, and grappling with others. Yes, people bleed. Yes, there are lots of really painful-looking things going on. Yes, it’s violent. But let me try to explain to women why this sport should matter and why you should not freak out so much about the popularity of this “fighting sport.”

One of the bones of contention for the CBS event was the women’s fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young. You may know Carano as Crush, the “hot” gladiator on NBC’s series American Gladiators. Carano has been called the face of women’s mixed martial arts since women haven’t really been major players in MMA until Carano showed up. So far, she’s undefeated and trains with some very elite names in the MMA community. She’s being trained by Extreme Coture, the fighting school established by MMA hall of famer Randy Coture. Then again, maybe she’ll do American Gladiators full time and will quit the daily grind of fight training.

Thing is, fighting looks pretty violent. In the early days of UFC, one of the sport’s major fight organizers, fights were brutal and the stuff of paid subscription television. There were no rules, so any man could fight any other man, so they did. Men’s teeth were kicked out. Hair was pulled. Groins were kicked. Blood was spilled, sometimes in copious amounts. This wasn’t a sport but televised brutality. While the “train wreck” appeal was undeniable, it quickly became apparent to everyone that the sport had to change in order to gain respect.

So the sport pulled together and created some unified rules. In UFC events and Elite XC events, there is no eye gouging, groin kicking, or elbows to the head while fighters are on the ground. There’s no breaking of fingers. Ringside doctors have the power to stop any fight at any time. Referees are required to stop fights they feel might become dangerous.

MMA may look brutal. It is fighting, after all, but the danger is overemphasized by critics. MMA doesn’t kill. Dale Earnhardt fans know all too well the pain of sports death, and the danger of sports like NASCAR, the NFL, or even horse racing are understated in the media while the dangers of MMA are overstated. MMA requires that fights be stopped before anyone actually gets hurt.

The idea is that fighters get to the point when they could potentially hurt each other seriously, like locking someone’s arm or chocking someone while on the ground. When this happens, the fight ends before harm is actually done. Nobody’s breaking their arms because the fighter wins when he proves that they could but before he actually does. Boxing emphasizes standing up, even though tremendous damage is being done to the brain, and Muhammad Ali is reminder of the damage that can be done by boxing. MMA, however, is a sport where the fight is stopped before the damage is done. If you’re not fighting back, you lose. No exceptions.

Then, there’s the question of taste. How tasteful can it be to have muscle-bound men, with the occasional woman, punch, kick, and wrestle each other in the name of sport? How can a sport be tasteful if so many of its athletes bleed during competition? Therein lies the most legitimate criticism of MMA.

When I was a young girl, I used to watch my grandfather while he watched boxing on TV. Grandpa was quite possibly the world’s most mild-mannered man. He had a heavy accent and a dark, brooding look about him, softened over the years by gray hair and the rounding of old age. He also loved to watch boxing, a surprising sport for a man like him to enjoy.

As boxing events wore on throughout the afternoon, he would sit in the living room, watching as men would pound each other about the head and body. He’d ball up his fists and hold them under his neck, occasionally throwing light punches in the air and shouting in the language I didn’t know. Eventually the frustration would overwhelm him and he’d storm out of the room to go work in the garden. A few minutes later, though, he’d always return to find out what happened.

I feel like our tastes don’t always have to define us. Yes, most MMA fans are young men, the kind of men who buy energy drinks and malt liquor, perennial corporate sponsors of MMA events. I, however, am a fan. I don’t know why I’m a fan, but MMA seems like a harmless indulgence. If sweaty men want to punch and kick each other for money and they want me to watch, I’ll watch.

So there you have it, MMA in a nutshell. Ladies, feel free to hate MMA if you want. I, on the other hand, will be enjoying last week’s big UFC pay-per-view event, hoping for some nice armbar or rear naked choke action.

Rick Jore is a very ambitious, no doubt about it. He’s also stupid.

Jore has created an amendment to the Montana state constitution that legally defines life as beginning at fertilization rather than at any other stage. Currently the Supreme Court and others have ruled that life can’t really be established until viability of a fetus which is why it’s okay for states to regulate or even ban abortion for older fetuses that are viable–that is, they can live unassisted–outside the womb.

Jore, however, wants to change that. He wants life to be defined as beginning at fertilization. When sperm hits egg, Jore says, then life has begun. I wonder if Jore knows how terribly unsuccessful most fertilized eggs actually are, especially in humans. Up to half of all fertilized eggs created will not implant and will thus not become a fetus. So are we going to start charging all women with murder who don’t live up to Jore’s lofty goals of implantation?

His nutty amendment is certainly an all-out appeal to religion and doesn’t attempt to hide that fact. If you read the amendment’s language, including changes made to the amendment, you can see that words like “born free ” were crossed out and replaced with “created free, ” and obvious allusion to religion. I have no problem with being religious but, last I checked, there was separation between church and state. I have the right to believe what I want, and CI-100 makes it seem like there’s only one acceptable explanation of life. That sucks.

So defining a fertilized egg as an human isn’t just a not-so-nice way of pushing religious ideas. It also sets a dangerous precedent for women. Consider the following:

• All abortion could be outlawed, including abortions performed to save the lives of mothers. The Supreme Court, by the way, has ruled many times that it’s unconstitutional to force a woman to die for her unborn child, assuming that an abortion would save her life.
• Birth control would be in jeopardy. So not only does this guy want to outlaw abortion, he wants to outlaw the one thing that can eliminate the need for abortion? Smart, Rick Jore. Smart.
• Doctors who treat women with high-risk pregnancies could face serious problems if women miscarry. It’s unclear if a doctor who treats a high-risk woman could be prosecuted for not doing everything in his power to save the life of a zygote, assuming the woman has a miscarriage.
• Jore, that silly rascal, has also said publicly that this law could allow for the investigation of women who have miscarriages for not doing everything they could to save the pregnancy. That’s the ticket, Rick! Blame the grieving women who’ve just lost their pregnancy!

I’m not trying to push my views on abortion, women’s health, or birth control on anyone. I just feel like a law this stupid has to be stopped and the people who write these laws need to stop and think about what they’re doing. Even if this law was passed, it’s unlikely it would be held constitutional by even our now-conservative Supreme Court. The problem is that people get this idea that it’s okay to ignore the fact that women have some say in their bodies, including their rights while pregnant. Jore’s amendment is almost like telling women that they are less important than the fetuses they carry.

Also, where’s this idea coming from that birth control is bad for our nation? Birth control saves lives! It keeps women from becoming pregnant before they are prepared. It prevents abortions. Who can argue against that?