What is it about?
This is a discussion about the long-running legal case brought against Agnes Gereb, a Hungarian midwife, which concerned home births. She has just been granted clemency by the Hungarian President.
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Why is it important?
Professional and legal sanctions exist to help protect the public from practitioners whose conduct or practice renders them unfit or unsafe to practise. There is a proportionate system in the UK whereby most cases alleging substandard practice are conducted using intra-professional or civil legal means; invoking the criminal law is exceptional. Nevertheless, Agnes Gereb was subjected to the criminal law, and despite high level international support has had to endure detention and house arrest, as well as a ban on practising clinically.
Perspectives
This long-running case can be viewed in many different ways: as a human rights issue (are pregnant women entitled to opt for home birth?); as a professional and legal issue (who should judge whether a practitioner’s actions are acceptable?); and as an issue which questions how challenges to medical orthodoxy are handled. The case appears to have been handled disproportionately, with punitive criminal sanctions applied when this would not have been the case in other jurisdictions. The granting of clemency, while welcome, does not exonerate Agnes Gereb.
Dr Andrew Symon
University of Dundee
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Clemency for Hungarian homebirth midwife Ágnes Geréb, British Journal of Midwifery, September 2018, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjom.2018.26.9.618.
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