I was in midwifery training, doing an internship on the Texas – Mexico border at a clinic in 1989. There were 7 of us in my class. I had been a lay midwife working in Wisconsin among some of the Plain settlements there. The rural Midwest is known for its Amish, Mennonite and Hutterian colonies scattered throughout the countryside. This population in particular was very much under-served medically, for a whole combination of reasons. At the same time it became …