The Midwife Is In · It is vital to remember that gynecology was invented by a torturing slave owner and that the instruments and tools of gynecology reflect that. [look up Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, the slaves he experimented on] The exam table is a method of dehumanizing patients, taking everything out of the view of the provider except for the vulva and vagina. The process of using stirrups takes power and strength away from the patient, making them feel like they're falling off the table and focusing on trying to stay afloat rather than recognizing what is being done to them and deciding whether or not they consent to the exam. @feministmidwife first started talking publicly about not using stirrups a few years back and I credit her with the shift in practice that is slowly, glacially happening. 
Research re-confirms what we know - pelvic exams only help in specific situations. We don't need to "take a look and make sure everything is ok" we don't need to "just check" in the vagina. Speculum and bimanual exams are only needed for very specific scenarios and using them for other reasons is abusive. I take pride in bringing conscientiousness, respect for individuality, an attempt at anti-racism, anti-classism, a broader understanding of gender, and a general love for my patients to my practice.

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/corp_funding.html#universities
"Received $548,000 from two of the four major formula makers in 1993." (Mothering magazine, July-August 2000, p.60)

“Get a midwife, have your baby at home, and avoid ob's and pediatricians like the plague.   [1996] Shulze Biser Heal Your Life videos (transcripts)   Richard Shulze, N.D., M.H.

They are expelled rather roughly and usually taken away from their mother, which is wrong. It's physiologically/psychologically wrong. Both baby and mother need each other more at that time than they ever will again. The baby should be put to nurse at his mother's breast whereupon it induces an enormous number of wonderful changes in the mother, such as an arresting of the postpartum hemorrhage, which no obstetrician can do under the circumstances, but a baby can do. Which indicates that there is more intelligence in the upper and the lower lip of one baby than all the brains of all the obstetricians put together. Ashley Montagu Interview by Michael Mendizza

In 1982, the state of California completed the largest study ever undertaken on the root causes of crime and violence. The number one cause was found to be medical interference with childbirth in our hospitals.---Joseph Chilton Pearce

There is no doubt in my mind….that a large proportion of brain-injured and learning disabled children are the result of obstetric drugs….Most women are unaware that obstetric drugs diminish the supply of oxygen to the unborn baby’s brain and can result in brain damage.---Diana Korte