The Independent recently published an article making serious allegations against Homestead Heritage based on the testimonies of three former members. The following is our response, correcting inaccuracies and clarifying misrepresentations. While we respect that some of the featured women may indeed have feelings of past trauma over their experiences and memories, the article distorts their stories into a broader narrative that unfairly misrepresents Homestead Heritage and its practices. The accounts of these three women stand in stark and unrecognizable contrast to the experience of hundreds of Homestead women whose perspective and experience were utterly absent from this distorted report. This one-sided account lacks balance and distorts the reality of life in our community. Such reckless “journalism” fuels bigotry, xenophobia, and hostility while offering no solutions or healing for the issues it claims to expose. The following response is not exhaustive but highlights key points that honest inquirers should consider before accepting The Independent’s sweeping and damning generalizations.
- Fair and Ethical Journalism? Michelle Del Rey spent over a year interviewing just six ex-members (only three of whom were named) while giving Homestead Heritage only four days—over a holiday weekend—to respond to 29 sweeping allegations. This is classic unethical, biased, harmful tabloid “journalism.”
- Leveraging HIPAA Confidentiality: The midwife involved, Amanda, is legally bound by HIPAA restrictions, preventing her from discussing case details and, therefore, from publicly defending herself. Her respect for legal limitations should not be misinterpreted as agreement with these allegations or the way events have been portrayed. It is both irresponsible and unethical for a reporter to accept such claims at face value and propagate them publicly—7 years after the fact—without credible evidence or professional validation. While those interviewed in the article are free to share (or omit) whatever personal information they wish and to make any allegations they choose–with no legal restraints and without providing concrete, professional medical documentation–the accused party is legally bound to confidentiality.
- Delayed Trauma Claims: Those expressing trauma today never voiced these concerns at the time of their births or for years afterward, neither to their families nor the church community. These individuals expressed outspoken gratitude for their births through emails, handwritten letters, and vocal testimonies at the time. Their declarations of these “horror stories” now emerge six years later—through a leftist UK tabloid openly contemptuous of conservative Christianity.
- Natural Birth Complications Misrepresented: The article dramatizes the details of natural birth, implying that complications like perineal tearing are unique to Homestead’s home birthing practices. In fact, 85% of natural births, including those in hospitals, result in some tearing, with 3rd- and 4th-degree tears affecting 3-4% of women.1 Postpartum complications are not exclusive to home births.
- Complications in Postpartum Perineal Suturing: Respected authorities such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the World Health Organization (WHO), and studies from PubMed and Cochrane Library show that 20-30% of women who undergo suturing after perineal tears experience complications like pain, infection, or poor healing in the weeks following childbirth. Furthermore, over one-third report long-term issues such as chronic pain, painful intercourse, or incontinence. Approximately 2-3% require re-suturing or corrective surgery due to improper suturing or infection, and up to 50% develop pelvic floor dysfunction, often linked to inadequate suturing. Importantly, these complications are not unique to lay midwives but occur under the care of licensed medical professionals. To suggest that the complications described in the article are specific to Homestead’s midwifery is disingenuous; these risks are well-documented in childbirth, whether care is provided by midwives or medical professionals in hospitals.
- Licensure Does Not Eliminate Risk: The article suggests that the lack of state licensure caused birth complications, implying that licensure would eliminate these risks. In truth, the midwife featured has the necessary education, certification, and qualifications but serves pro bono through her church ministry, a choice all parents are informed of in writing before births. No license can remove the inherent risks of childbirth. It is grievous that a woman who has dedicated her life to serving others freely is now maligned by the very women she sought to help at their request.
- The article blatantly stereotypes Homestead women, misrepresenting their free choice of a traditional family lifestyle as the result of an alleged “expectation to marry and reproduce”—a claim Homestead specifically refuted before publication. The journalist apparently assumes that unless women adopt a mainstream lifestyle, they must be “oppressed.” This gaslighting dismisses Homestead women’s cultural choice as contemptible, undermining their autonomy while mirroring the very discrimination it claims to oppose.
- One-Sided Accusations: The journalist received multiple answers from Homestead that were never mentioned in the story, leaving readers to assume that Homestead had no answer to many of the allegations. Journalistic ethics would require a story based primarily on hearsay to at least include the other side of the story. Just one example among multiple absurd claims is the allegation that Homestead prohibits pain medication in childbirth, despite Homestead specifically debunking this before publication.
- Tabitha’s Housing Situation: The article falsely claims that Tabitha lost her home due to her decision to leave the church. In reality, she had built a small house on a church member’s property, and when she chose to leave, she requested and received a very fair price for her house—a fact conveniently omitted. This is only one of many falsehoods in the article, but one disprovable with concrete evidence.
- Firing Fabrication: The article claims Tabitha was fired for leaving the church. In truth, she initiated her departure by giving her two weeks’ notice and left on good terms, expressing gratitude to Café Homestead in writing. Again, the Café’s employment practices were fully explained to the journalist before publication.
- Homestead Education Misrepresented: The claim that home education in Homestead includes “no history, math, science, nothing” is ludicrous. The church does not micromanage parental curriculum choices. Still, anyone who’s attended a Homestead high school graduation or visited the curriculum center at the Homestead Fair knows how impossible and false this statement is. The articulation and clarity of the interviewees themselves belie the nonsense that all they were taught was “ABCs.”
Birth—A Spiritual Experience
Since 1979, birthing at home has been integral to our community’s spiritual culture. Jesus chose birth as the ultimate symbol of regeneration and salvation (John 3:3). Birth is not only a blessing from the Lord but also God’s gracious means of sustaining life on an earth “subjected to futility” and ever “groaning in the pains of childbirth” under the curse of sin (Romans 8:20-22). Birth is the fruition of humanity’s most sacred bond—marital intimacy between husband and wife, as scripture tells us that “Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Genesis 4:1). Thus, for us, natural birth in the context of home and family is one of life’s most sacred and spiritual experiences, not to be unnecessarily medicalized.
Our midwifery team serves as a ministry—a sacred service to mothers and families. In fact, dozens of community members volunteer to hold continuous prayer vigils, lifting up the mother, child, and midwives throughout every birth, from beginning to end. This spiritual care is just as vital as the physical, enveloping each birth in the love and support of our faith community.
Regular, natural birth is not a disease or an emergency, though some births do become pathological, requiring immediate medical intervention—something we make full use of, as the doctors in our area would readily attest.
Because we view birth as a sacred, spiritual expression of our family and culture in Christ, we do not believe it necessitates state-licensed professionals. Instead, our members align with Texas law, which affirms the parents’ “responsibility and right to give birth where and with whom the parent chooses.” We also agree with legal precedent in Texas and other states, which draws a clear distinction between a professional midwife—who charges for her services and advertises her commercial services to the public—and a “traditional birth attendant” operating within her faith community. The latter neither charges for her services nor presents herself as a licensed midwife but serves out of love and goodwill, supporting parents in their right to experience this sacred moment in the sanctity of their own home with the care they choose and trust.
Homestead members are free to give birth in whatever setting they choose, and some choose hospital birth for various reasons. But we believe their right to a traditional home birth that most closely reflects our spiritual heritage and culture should not be disparaged or infringed upon.
For more details on Homestead’s approach to midwifery licensure, click here.
The following is the complete, unedited material Homestead Heritage and Amanda Lancaster provided to Michelle Del Rey prior to the publishing of her story, in response to a lengthy list of general questions and allegations from former members: