The St. George midwife who was arrested and booked for illegally practicing medicine nearly five years ago came to the Capitol on Monday to plead with lawmakers to legalize her practice. Smith's arrest sent a chill through Utah's midwife community, forcing midwives to try, every year since, to get the law changed.

Monday, the Senate Business and Labor Committee approved House Bill 25, which would license and regulate midwives, and sent it to the Senate floor for debate - putting the bill so long in the making one step closer to final passage.

In November 2000, Smith was charged with four felony counts after cutting two emergency episiotomies and injecting a hemorrhaging mother with pitocin - all during home births.

"I was not charged because I hurt anyone," Smith said. "I learned the hard way that direct-entry midwifery - even responsible, life-saving midwifery - is illegal in Utah."

Midwives have been delivering babies in Utah since Mormon pioneers first arrived. But in 1993, lawmakers revised Utah's Nurse Midwifery Act and threw into question modern practice of the ancient craft. As a result, Utah law allows mothers to choose to give birth at home, but makes it illegal for midwives to do more than simply "catch" babies - prohibiting prenatal care and fetal monitoring.

Still, about 600 babies in Utah are born at home each year. Their mothers are attended by lay midwives and doulas - who provide physical and emotional support - or not at all. Doctors and certified nurse midwives will not attend home births.

HB25 would establish education and training standards for new "certified professional midwives." The legislation includes a list of drugs midwives could administer - including Vitamin K and pitocin - and dictates when mothers would have to be transported to the hospital. The bill also includes liability protections for doctors and hospitals who treat midwives' patients in emergencies.

Although the Utah Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have withdrawn their opposition to the bill, the Nurses Association and Traditional Midwives Council still argued against the legislation Monday.

Cindy Holland, co-president of the council, said midwives, not the state, should regulate themselves.

"I won't even deliver a woman who drinks sodas and colas," Holland said. "It does more damage to the woman and baby. They don't make for safe home delivery."

Republican Sen. Allen Christensen, a North Ogden pediatric dentist, took the unusual step of sitting in on the debate and testifying against the bill.

"Times have changed. Medical health practices have changed. And regulations have changed," Christensen said. "This is very dangerous ground."

One grief-stricken mother also asked lawmakers to leave Utah's ambiguous law alone. Lynn Nicholas' daughter-in-law hemorrhaged and died after her midwife transported her to a Bozeman, Mont., hospital a year ago.

"Karen was 15 minutes from the hospital" and that wasn't close enough, Nicholas said. "I have a son that's raising a motherless child."

The all-male panel of lawmakers asked questions about the cost of midwife licensing and their training, but ultimately signed off with little debate.

Only southern Utah Sens. Tom Hatch, R-Panguitch, and Bill Hickman, R-St. George, voted against the bill.