“...the total number of pregnancies in which powerful and dangerous drugs are used is 60 percent, or nearly two-thirds of all births. It is rediculous to think that two-thirds of American women have such lousy uteruses that they must be whipped into shape with drugs in order to have babies.”

“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”

“The techno-medical model of maternity care, unlike the midwifery model, is comparatively new on the world scene, having existed for barely two centuries. This male-derived framework for care is a product of the industrial revolution. As anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd has described in detail, underlying the technocratic mode of care of our own time is an assumption that the human body is a machine and that the female body in particular is a machine full of shortcomings and defects. Pregnancy and labor are seen as illnesses, which, in order not to be harmful to mother or baby, must be treated with drugs and medical equipment. Within the techno-medical model of birth, some medical intervention is considered necessary for every birth, and birth is safe only in retrospect.”

“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them. ”

“In order to be near us, to hang out with us, it was good to have drugs.”

“Just like a human foetus, while in the uterus, retrieves and assimilates the components that allow its physical body to become whole and fit to emerge into the outer reality, the third dimension serves the purpose of shamanic pregnancy, which is about retrieving and integrating the fragmented pieces of the soul, finally giving birth to the multidimensional self.”