I guess we all have our own fights to fight. What is a priority to me may not be a priority to the person next to me, and vice versa. Ultimately though, I think it comes down to is educating yourself, working out what your priorities are and working out how to make sure those priorities are respected. That may mean freebirthing, homebirthing, birthing within the private system with an OB you know and trust or birthing within the public system at a hospital of your choice using the model of care you prefer.

Everyone wants to be respected. Everyone wants the best care they can get. Everyone wants a healthy baby at the end. Just some are not too worried about how that is. For instance, PZ says she would be devastated if someone cut her perineum. I simply dont feel the same way. I've been in an emergency situation wherein my child and I almost died. I am thankful I had developing world obstetric care at hand to save us. If I ever find myself in that situation again, I would be thankful if the OB cut me from ear to ear if s/he had to. To me, there are worse things in the world than an episiotomy. Just look at the rate of fistula in the developing world (not to mention infant/maternal death rates).

Obviously though, birth activism is not my thing. If people feel the need to fight for this particular practice to be stopped, more power to them. I have other issues in my sights
Yep I agree.

I think I gave consent to my midwives to do what they thought was best throughout the antenatal period when we had many long chats about birth. I began to trust them to do what was necessary, only if it were necessary, and to keep the best interest of myself and my child in mind. So that said, I gave them consent in general to treat me the best they could, and they didn't need to ask for it at the time, because we knew each other well enough.

I had TWO epi's with this most recent birth, both without anesthetic, and both were vital, and they told me they had to do it rather than ask consent.... which was how we had agreed it would be... just do what you have to do and I'll do what I have to do. I don't feel violated at all.

It was my MW's first epi, and she's been delivering babies 7 years.