Elaine Epstein was in the unusual position of hoping that filming on her movie “Arrest the Midwife” might be over before it even began. With plans to follow the case of Elizabeth Catlin, a professional midwife who provided home births in the Northeast before a newborn immediately died under her watch, appearing less likely a result of her care than the infant’s natural health. The death was a tragedy, but one that could portend an even greater one when Catlin primarily tended to the Mennonite and Amish communities, which would be left with few options for delivering their children when visiting a hospital isn’t part of their culture, and the charges against Catlin were compounded by the fact that the state the birth took place in – New York — is increasingly not recognizing licensed midwives, making the mere facilitation of a birth illegal.
How did this come about?
It started with my own experience with having children. When we decided that we wanted to have kids, we did what a lot of lesbian gay couples do — we thought we’ll go see a fertility specialist and go the medical route. But that really didn’t feel right to us after a while. A friend of ours suggested meeting with her midwife, and it was just a complete gamechanger. It was just such a different experience in terms of midwifery care. We never looked back. My daughter was birthed by a midwife in a hospital setting and my son was birthed at home in our bathtub with a midwife and I say my daughter was the inspiration [for the film] and my son was the sequel. [laughs]
Before watching the film, I didn’t know of the personal connection, but could feel it when you take such great care to show the midwife experience. What was important for you to depict?
It’s not that we are advocating that everyone has a home birth, but that we’ve lost this connection to birth and what midwifery care does is it gives us very personal, intimate, empowering experience that I really wanted to convey in the film. We’ve resorted to a business model of birth, which is really is the exact opposite of what birth is about. Birth does not happen on a schedule. It happens as it happens, and interestingly enough, the home birth that I filmed in the film, when my wife watched that, that was the thing that convinced her to have our son at home.
In a way, that speaks to the idea that this connects across communities of all kinds. How did you end up finding this situation unfolding in the Mennonite and Amish communities as a way in to tell this larger story regarding midwives?
When we were thinking about having our second child, we went back to the midwifery practice that we had used with our first and we went back really early because it’s really difficult to get in. There’s such a high demand for these services. And I found that the midwifery practice [we previously used] had closed. That was just shocking to us, and we [thought] what’s going on? Why would they close a midwifery practice that has such a high demand? That sparked my interest and I just started researching. I had friends in the birth world and they started telling me stories and then I stumbled across the story of Liz’s arrest, and I [thought] “this is the story to highlight these issues around birthing.”
Was there anything that changed your ideas of what this was as you were filming?
I never expected it to be three midwives. I thought this was a story about Liz, but what was surprising was the emergence of just these really strong women from the Mennonite community that came forward to speak out and then the access to that community, which I think I was granted because they feel so passionately about this issue that this was an extension of their activism. To see them stand up and fight and join the reproductive rights fight was just amazing.
The film makes the point that the Mennonites are largely content to keep their community apart from the rest of society and beyond activism, I imagine letting a camera in is something they wouldn’t normally feel comfortable about. What was it like filming there?
It was interesting because I think as much as I was curious about their life, they were as curious about ours, so it was this beautiful exchange of information. They really enjoyed working with the team and we really enjoyed getting to know them and these communities have a lot to teach us in terms of things that are really important today, which is community. They do that very well.
Speaking of communities, you’re able to tie the Mennonites to many other communities that are affected by the laws regarding midwifes, including the Black and brown communities. What was like to make those connections.
That was one of the hardest aspects of making the film, bringing in all these elements. But it was extremely important when in this country, Black and brown women are negatively impacted by what’s happening in the reproductive health space more than any other community, so we struggled with bringing it in, but it was key and let me tell you, it was a tough film to edit just because of all these different strands.
There’s a great sequence where you’re able to cover the history of midwives and the pushback by the greater medical profession with many voices and animation that conveys a contentious debate around the practice. What was it like putting that together in such lively fashion?
Originally, I’d looked at archival footage that covered just the history of midwifery, and I feel like we’ve seen that so much in other films, I didn’t want to repeat it, but there was a very interesting aspect of going back to this old depiction of midwives and line drawing, Midwives in the early days were referred to as witches and there was something in that that we wanted to explore [in that artistic style of the time]. I found this amazing animation company, Andor, [and in general] we have a lot of women that were on our crew and this was a woman-run animation company. I never expected it to turn out as well as it did, but they just kicked it out of the park.
You’ve still got the premiere at SXSW to come, but what’s it like getting to this point with the film and putting it out at this particular moment?
It’s like delivering a third baby, right? [laughs] Which seems like an apt analogy given the film, but it really is. You’re putting out your baby into the world. We’ve worked on it for a long time. I’ve had an amazing team by my side, and we’re thrilled about premiering at South By. And this is such an important film to come out at this time. We’ve heard a lot of this issue, and I wouldn’t even call it an erosion of reproductive rights, but an annihilation of rights at this point and there’s always been a group that stood up for reproductive rights. But we don’t often hear from a religious community fighting for bodily autonomy and reproductive justice, so I think that’s what’s unique about our film and it’s key that it’s coming out at this time. I hope it sparks conversation and joins in the fight for women’s reproductive rights.
“Arrest the Midwife” will screen at SXSW on March 9th at 2:15 pm at the Alamo Lamar 5 and 6, March 11th at 2:45 pm at the Alamo Lamar 2 and 7 and March 13th at 2:45 pm at the Violet Crown 2 and 4.