When several New York midwives were arrested in 2020, it spurred these rural religious communities into political activism—and inspired a PBS film. Rewire News Group interviewed a midwife who was criminally charged in the crackdown.

Arrest the Midwife, a PBS documentary released on Aug. 30, explores the essential—and occasionally criminalized—role of midwives in Amish and Mennonite communities, two Christian groups collectively referred to as the “Plain People.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Melissa Carman, a certified professional midwife, or CPM, was arrested in New York state on charges of hindering prosecution and unauthorized practice of a profession for operating an “illegal midwifery practice.” Arrest the Midwife traces how the state’s criminal justice system punished her and other midwives, and prevented them from attending births. 

Carman began practicing midwifery in 2013 and now runs a Pennsylvania birthing center near the New York border popular among Plain families. Amish and Mennonite women generally prefer to give birth in a birth center or at home, rather than in hospitals. 

In most U.S. states, two kinds of midwives could attend their births: certified nurse-midwives, who’ve earned degrees in both nursing and midwifery and can work in hospitals; and CPMs, whose training enables them to care for mothers birthing out of the hospital. 

But in New York, CPMs are not allowed to obtain a midwifery license, and so cannot attend any births—even home births. Nurse-midwives may attend births at home or in a hospital, and since 2010 have even been empowered to run their own birthing centers. Yet in many rural areas of the state, there simply aren’t enough nurse-midwives to meet demand. 

In 2020, a newborn baby boy died in upstate New York shortly after his laboring mother, an Amish woman, was transferred to the hospital. Authorities arrested the CPM who’d overseen his mother’s care, Elizabeth Catlin. She was charged with unlawfully practicing the profession of midwifery, among dozens of other charges. 

This ordeal took place during the COVID pandemic, when the state had permitted CPMs licensed in other states to attend........

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