Lately, I’ve been musing on midwifery. My fascination with women always seems to lead me back to birth and the state of womanhood. The sight and thought of women giving birth in hospitals inexplicably boils my blood. Perhaps it stems from my contempt for contemporary society, the liberal obsession with “progress,” or my peculiar admiration for Ted Kaczynski.
As I reflected on midwifery, my thoughts turned to the disappearance of ritual—the loss of tradition in modern society. I can’t recall who I heard speak about it—Louise Perry or Mary Harrington, perhaps—but they remarked on how young women today lack the generational knowledge of motherhood once passed down orally from mother to daughter. This absence struck a chord with me, not only regarding motherhood but also other vanishing traditions. Consider immigrant families who come to Western societies and watch their children shed their cultural heritage in favor of liberal Western norms. But this post isn’t about lamenting the death of traditions and cultures—it’s about lamenting the loss for women.
Earlier this week, I joked about becoming the Ted Kaczynski of contemporary medicine. Modern medicine, for all its miracles, often treats symptoms instead of addressing the person as a whole. That’s not to dismiss its monumental achievements: penicillin, EpiPens, life-saving surgeries—all extraordinary accomplishments. Yet I wonder to what extent these interventions conflict with natural selection.
From a naturalistic or holistic perspective, if the world is truly “dog-eat-dog”—where the strong thrive and the weak falter—then doesn’t modern medicine, in some cases, undercut this reality? Consider diseases like cancer or conditions like obesity, which modern interventions aim to mitigate. Have we inadvertently created a society that selects for the sickly, one where the mean deviates toward the lowest common denominator in pursuit of safety and comfort?
But what does any of this have to do with midwifery?
It brings me back to childbirth. For centuries—millennia—women gave birth naturally, without intervention. Does an elephant consult an “elephant doctor” to plan her delivery? Does she induce labor when the calf isn’t born by a specific date? No. The elephant instinctively knows what to do. She possesses a natural maternal wisdom, a knowledge that, for humans, was once intrinsic and passed down through generations.
Yet, at some point—likely in the late 19th century—this natural wisdom was supplanted by obstetrics and the medicalized hospital birth. Intervention became the norm. Medicine shifted away from holism—treating the person as a whole—toward atomism: breaking down the human experience into isolated, manageable parts. Pregnancy and childbirth, once sacred and deeply personal, became clinical processes to be managed, scheduled, and optimized.
Why do women give birth in hospitals? What compels them to submit to this system? For thousands of years, women knew everything needed to bring life into the world—through instinct, through community, through tradition. But now, pregnancy has been framed as an “inconvenience” or an ordeal to be managed as efficiently as possible.
My musings ultimately finish with this thought: People often think change happens suddenly, but it’s gradual. Every small or big action is a stepping stone toward a new reality. Ted Kaczynski, for all his violence, was a man of action—he understood this. In many respects, I think he was right. His actions highlight the larger problem of our society: peaceful comfort, safety, and the illusion of security have become our prisons. We live like animals on a farm.
Think about it: a cow is tended to when it needs care, milked when it’s ready, and otherwise left to exist in a controlled environment—until it’s sent to slaughter. Are we really so different? Or consider the zoo animal, stuck in a manufactured habitat, its every need accounted for but its freedom gone. How can we be so sure we’re not just zoo animals to a larger, external force? Perhaps that force is governmental, or cultural, or something even more systemic.
It reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, particularly the conflict between Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, and Lord Beckett. Jack represents the free-spirited, untamed possibility of an open ocean—a world without fences, wild and full of opportunity. Davy Jones, with his Lovecraftian power, symbolizes nature’s raw, unyielding force, while Lord Beckett stands for the British Empire’s mastery of subjugation—of bending nature to its will, not living harmoniously with it but controlling it. Humans, I think, are often like Beckett. We don’t unite with nature; we conquer it.
This brings me to my lamentation: I wish we treated people more like human beings—creatures of nature—rather than as entities to be controlled, farmed, and managed. Perhaps that’s not even the core of my grief. Perhaps I’m longing for something deeper—a time long past, or maybe a time that never was. A man out of sync with his era.
For any women reading this, I encourage you to consider a holistic approach to your health—particularly regarding childbirth. We’ve lost so much wisdom, so much connection to our own instincts, and the knowledge passed down through generations. Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, and this is just my opinion. Please do your own research and consult professionals before making any decisions about your health.