Dear Friends,
I found the following in Midwifery Today E-News, 4/14/00. I have no other
information or independent corroboration of the facts given but I think that
it is something you would want to hear about.
Alice Martino
in central New York State
wife of John; mother of Lew, Kathy and Doug
mailto:[log in to unmask]
She has been a midwife for 25 years. She has touched so many of our lives
in countless ways. Valerie El Halta has received 2,500 babies into her
loving hands. She has supervised many, many more deliveries at two
free-standing (truly autonomous) birth centers. She has trained hundreds of
midwives all over the world.
Thousands of women have been saved from cesarean sections directly or
indirectly as a result of Val's teaching. She has taught about twins,
breeches, fear, the sacredness of birth, post-dates, and of course
preventing posterior presentations. She went to Africa at her own cost to
teach and help women give birth, and taught doctors and midwives there. She
teaches, then teaches more. She gives of her self endlessly.
Valerie has answered countless middle-of-the-night, holiday and weekend
phone calls, daytime, breakfast time and dinner time phone calls every day
of the year for the past twenty-five years. They are calls from midwives
who are at a prenatal, or attending a homebirth, who have run into a
situation, or have a question, or who need help in an urgent situation. She
has never accepted a dime for her thousands of hours of consult time.
Valerie has spent the majority of her waking hours midwifing, sharing,
instructing, and supporting us. Chances are you have been taught directly
by her, or perhaps the midwife who you trained with was. She teaches us,
she reminds us, to keep birth normal. She was attending VBAC births at home
long before any other midwife in the country was willing to do so. She has
a 1 percent transport rate and her outcomes are superb. She has traveled
the four corners of our globe to assist women who were otherwise unable to
find competent and gentle care. These women would no doubt have been
unnecessarily cut or badly bruised without her care. She has tirelessly
shown us, by her unwavering faith in the process of birth and through her
experienced and trusting hands and her broad and open heart, how to assist
women as they birth. Valerie has been called by many, rightly so, the
mother midwife of us all.
And she needs your help. Valerie El Halta is being sued by one of her
couples. Her legal defense will take hundreds of thousands of dollars, and
untold strains on Valerie and her family. We must support and believe in
the woman who has given so much to midwifery and to the world. In medical
situations, the death of an infant is surrounded by a cloak of silence. In
midwifery, we are dragged through the streets by the media, and endure
public and legal humiliation. The media has already tried and convicted
her. Not only will Valerie be on trial, but all of midwifery will be on
trial. We must form a solid wall surrounding our sister, friend and fellow
midwife--a wall of support, love and solidarity.
Your help is desperately needed. We are in great need of funds for the VEH
Support Fund. Please, please help. Checks can be made out to the VEH
Support Fund and sent to VEH Support Fund c/o Katie Heffelfinger, 27 North
14th St., Allentown, PA 18102. All letters of support can be sent to the
fund and will be forwarded to Val. They can be snail-mailed or sent to
[log in to unmask]
Please send your donation immediately and please get this out to everyone
you know immediately. Thank you so much for your help, your caring, and
your prayers. With eternal gratitude and love to Val, and to all of you:
thank you for your caring,
Nancy Wainer Cohen, midwife, childbirth educator and childbirth author
Katie Heffelfinger, doula, birth activist, pregnant mom
Reprinted from Midwifery Today E-News (Issue No. 15; 4/14/00)
To subscribe to the E-News write: [log in to unmask]
For all other matters contact Midwifery Today:
PO Box 2672-940, Eugene OR 97402
541-344-7438, [log in to unmask], http://www.midwiferytoday.com
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