Midwife Karen Carr's guilty plea: When home births go wrong, are midwives criminally liable?

Last week, a midwife named Karen Carr pleaded guilty to two felonies for her role in a Virginia home birth and was sentenced to a few days in jail and less than $10,000 in fines and restitution. Considering the punishment she risked at trial, the plea deal seemed like a wise one: she had been indicted on a slew of charges, including involuntary manslaughter, after a delivery in which an Alexandria, Va., client's breech baby got stuck and subsequently died. Depending on your point of view, Carr is either a compassionate professional who believes in a pregnant woman's autonomy or an ideologue who acted as if she was above the law. But what is the law? Is a midwife criminally liable for a birth that goes wrong? And how often are midwives actually prosecuted?

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