Black women in Georgia turn to midwives for safer births – so why does the state criminalize many of them?

Jamarah Amani (right), a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Georgia, works with Black families, including young and low-income moms, through a mobile clinic in Florida. She left Georgia due to its restrictive laws. Photograph: Courtesy of Jamarah Amani

When Tamara Taitt moved to Georgia in 2023 to run the Atlanta Birth Center, she found herself in what she calls “an extraordinary position”. Under Georgia law, the center’s own executive director cannot provide routine clinical care for the center’s own clients. She could even face criminal charges for doing so.

Taitt is a nationally accredited midwife. She directs one of the only freestanding birth centers in the state – a destination for women seeking to give birth outside a hospital, cared for by midwives rather than obstetricians. Families choose birth centers to access more holistic, less medicalized prenatal care and birth, and to avoid invasive medical interventions in a state where C-sections occur at three times the rate recommended by the World Health Organization.