Posted By n/a on 06/26/2008 11:43 PM
I think too that inasmuch as it is every woman's right to push in any position she chooses to, a hospital can have the policies it chooses to and can deny care if these are not followed. So both can exist next to each other unfortunately.
Legally, under EMTALA, if a woman is in active labor and she approaches a hospital within a certain distance (150 yeard?), the hospital can no longer deny care regardless of what policies the woman does not wish to abide by.
Of course this is of no comfort to the woman who is physically forced to submit to hospital "policy" (which is more often just "practice" with no written policy to demand it) when she tries to get some sort of redress after the birth, and no lawyer will touch her case, and the police don't accept that the woman has been legally assaulted.