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to testify in her behalf at her trial.
In this instance, said Mr. Bracken, it is local physicians who are pushing for Ms. Hughes to be prosecuted. He is surprised that they are pursuing the case. It is a tragedy, said Mr. Bracken, that the little girl died, but to put Martha Hughes in jail would be just as bad.
Ms. Hughes is a lay midwife; she is not a certified nurse midwife which would be recognized by the state of Virginia. She typically helps women who wish to have a natural birth in their own homes. Because she is out on a $ 100,000 bond, she has not been allowed to practice midwifery since her indictment.
Fellow midwives and friends of Ms. Hughes’s have pulled together and are planning several fund raisers for her defense between now and her trial beginning Nov. 18 in Leesburg. The jury trial is expected to last for three days. $3,000 was raised in the first two weeks following Ms. Hughes’s indictment.
Hundreds of signatures have'been obtained on petitions at Mountainside Market which espouse an individual’s freedom of choice to choose a home birth with a midwife over a hospital birth, and to express disagreement with the state’s prosecution of midwives. Ms. Hughes said the petitions will be send to the prosecutors in Loudoun County.
Midwife Susie Gillette of Front Royal and midwife Sheila SimmsWatson of Sperryville, who works with Ms. Hughes, have planned several fund raisers for her. *
The first will be a benefit potluck dinner at 6:30 p.m. on June 14 spon
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