B.C. 'childbirth activist' charged with manslaughter after newborn's death

A British Columbia woman who was under investigation for offering unauthorized midwifery services is now charged with manslaughter following the death of a newborn baby early last year.

A British Columbia woman who was under investigation for offering unauthorized midwifery services is now charged with manslaughter following the death of a newborn baby early last year.

Mounties on Vancouver Island arrested 77-year-old Gloria Lemay on Tuesday, more than a year after an unresponsive baby was delivered at a private home in the community of Ladysmith, according to a statement from the Ladysmith RCMP.

The child was delivered on Dec. 27, 2023, and died in palliative care more than a week later on Jan. 6, 2024, despite life-saving efforts from paramedics and doctors, statement said.

Later that month, investigators with the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives and the RCMP searched Lemay's home in Duncan in relation to "her ongoing unauthorized practice of midwifery," according to a public notice from the midwife regulator.

Lemay has a long history of providing midwifery services despite not obtaining registration through the province, eventually prompting the college to obtain a "permanent court order" in February 2000 barring her from continuing the practice, the regulator said.

Two years later, Lemay was found guilty of criminal contempt for assisting in 10 home births – for which she charged a fee of $2,500 each – and was sentenced to five months in jail.

In 1985, Lemay and another woman were charged with criminal negligence causing death after a boy they were attempting to deliver in a Vancouver home died while still in the birth canal.