A birth center to be staffed by midwives is suing Georgia in federal court for unconstitutionally denying it permission to operate after three local hospitals expressed opposition to it.
At present, there are only three non-hospital birth centers in Georgia, a state with more than 120,000 human births annually, but none are within a 130-mile radius of Augusta, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a national non-profit public interest law firm that is representing the center.
Childbirth outcomes are “abysmal” across the state, including in the Augusta area, PLF says. The plaintiffs say that local nurses around Augusta, which is on the border with South Carolina, tell stories of a lack of beds and women giving birth in hospital hallways….