Someone needs to go back to Journalism 101...

Someone at 20/20, that is. On January 2, 2009, 20/20 ran an episode themed "Extreme Parenting." As part of this package of segments, they ran one about homebirth. Sort of. Captioned as a story about homebirth, the segment interchangeably describes homebirthing with a trained nurse-midwife in attendance with homebirthing without medical personnel in attendance, a practice often called unassisted birth. By conflating the two, 20/20 not only does a disservice to the general viewing audience and those who choose to homebirth, it also calls into question the intelligence of its story editors and journalists.

The segment opens somewhat dramatically with a shot of a log cabin surrounded by mountains. Journalist Elizabeth Vargas voices over this image, inviting the audience to think about what it must have been like to give birth on the American frontier 200 years ago. "There's not a hospital or a pain-relieving drug or an ob/gyn in sight." Heavens to Betsy!! What shall we do? In order to showcase what Betsy might have done, the segment then shows snippets of classic Western movies (or perhaps they confused these fictional movies with actual historical documents - one can only guess). Vargas states that in spite of the "primitive" and "dangerous" methods, by today's standards, women seemed to do okay. However, she states, there is a small segment of modern American mothers-to-be who are "choosing to give birth without medical assistance." As Vargas says this, we see images of women holding newborns right after giving birth - images that are likely familiar to anyone who has seen the documentary "The Business of Being Born." You know, that documentary that followed medically-trained midwives as they helped women give birth, not just some layperson off the street who don't know nothing about birthing no babies. Next, we are introduced to Laura Shanley, a Colorado woman who is one of the most outspoken proponents of unassisted birth. We move directly from a quote by Shanley to a snippet from The Business of Being Born showing Ricki Lake's homebirth with her 2nd child. A homebirth that was attended by a midwife. Confused yet? This back and forth between unassisted birth and midwife-attended homebirth continues throughout the poorly-written segment. To blur the line even more, the last part of the segment is Shanley talking about unassisted birth. Wow. Way to not muddy the waters, ABC.

I really wonder if after viewing the final version of the segment, Ricki Lake got pissed off and decided to do an expose of the geniuses at 20/20, because if I was her, I would be right pissed off. Really, the only thing lacking from the terrible segment was an interview with the notorious homebirth opponent, Amy Tuteur. Eh, maybe someone at 20/20 was thinking that day...