04/13/2026
Georgia is really out here threatening to jail the very midwives who could help save Black women’s lives. And now, those same midwives are standing up and fighting back in court.
More than a third of counties in Georgia don’t even have proper maternity care. No OBs. No birth centers. No hospital obstetric services. Nothing.
The maternal mortality rate is sitting at 30 deaths per 100,000 births. And somehow, instead of fixing that, the state has made it a crime for trained, experienced midwives to catch babies. You can literally face fines and jail time for doing the work our communities have relied on for generations.
Back in February, Georgia’s oldest freestanding birth center had to close. That leaves only three in the entire state. At the same time, lawmakers let HB520 die, a bill that could have decriminalized midwifery, on the very last day of the session.
So now, three midwives are taking this fight to court.
One of them, Jamarah Amani, shared that her own hospital birth was traumatic. She said she had no real autonomy over her body and was treated more like a prisoner than a patient. She ended up laboring in a hospital bathroom just to give birth the way she knew was right for her.
She went on to become a licensed midwife, but had to leave Georgia just to do it.
Then there’s Tamara Taitt, who runs the Atlanta Birth Center, but is legally not allowed to provide care to her own patients. Her credentials are recognized in 39 states. But in Georgia, they act like it means nothing.
And let’s be real, this didn’t just happen overnight. A century ago, Black midwives were pushed out on purpose. They were labeled unsanitary and superstitious while laws were put in place to give doctors control and shut midwives out. In just twenty years, the number of midwives in Georgia dropped from 9,000 to 2,000.
This has never just been about safety. It has always been about control over our bodies and our communities.
Today, Black women in Georgia are dying in childbirth at more than twice the rate of white women.
The World Health Organization has said that expanding access to midwifery care could prevent more than 60 percent of maternal and newborn deaths. But instead of investing in that, Georgia is pushing trained midwives out while women continue to die.
Now the Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a lawsuit in Fulton County, alongside these midwives, to challenge laws that many say are rooted in the same history of excluding Black birth workers.
This is what the fight over our bodies looks like right now. Not just abortion bans, but going after the very community care systems Black women built to survive.
And these midwives are not backing down.
These are the heroes we need.
