But, once Black women’s prowess within the field posed a threat to white men looking to capitalize in the field, midwifery was decried as a “degrading” form of obstetrical care. Male doctors lobbied to ban the practice and abortion along with it, positioning themselves as superior, and ultimately removing Black and Indigenous women from the same spaces they helped cultivate. Of course, it had been those same Black women whose bodies were probed and prodded in experimental, dangerous surgeries that ultimately made it possible for the kind of obstetrical advances that would further delegitimize midwifery. “Dr. Marion Sims famously wrote about his insomniac-induced ‘epiphanies’ that stirred him to experiment on enslaved Black women, lacerating, suturing, and cutting, providing no anesthesia or pain relief,” notes the ACLU. In addition to being used, mistreated and mutilated, Black women were also barred from practicing inside hospitals once they came into existence. Another effect of the sidelining of Black midwives was the banning of abortion and contraceptives; this made it possible for white men to have all the power when it came to women’s reproductive choices, and also made it illegal for Black women to help their communities in the way they’d been doing for generations.
