What role does the father of baby have in the decision of where & how to birth?

[onthefly]

Well said Arcadia!

[Smoke Jaguar]

With me wanting a HB, DP's objection was cost. I told him that if he really didn't want to pay for it, I'd take out a personal loan, because he was not getting me into a car during labour if not medically necessary ever again. It WAS his only objection and we worked around it.
I really don't see why a father should get a say in how things are done, unless he is optimising a peaceful birth - prioritising the mother's values, not his own. His own values don't have a place in the birthing space - the baby is not coming out of HIS body, and if he is going to be a liability in the birthing space he needs to be somewhere else. Just because fathers are accepted into the birth space now, it doesn't mean they need to be there, especially if they think their terms must be accommodated.
I know my view is really unpopular,, but women's rights are not really evolved if we are expected to respect the father's wishes in birth. If you do then that's fine and up to you, if you are also getting everything YOU want from the birth. If anything you want is compromised by something the father doesn't agree with, then I have major ethical problems with that.
It wasn't the 'bad old days' when birthing was women only - birth worked out really well back then, considering hygiene practices were questionable and women's diets were crap (because men got the best food and no-one thought women had to be healthy to make more people).
It's YOUR body birthing - birth is YOUR way and if your partner isn't on board with that, then consider that you don't have to do it with the father present and he must EARN his place in the birthing space by being supportive. Seriously, birth CAN happen without your partner there
Deferring to someone else's wishes for birth is just so problematic. I did that the first time and acquiesced to the financial advantage of a birth centre. Never again. And it wasn't horrible or traumatic, is just didn't align with my values in the end and I know that if it had been up to me completely I would have birthed at home. The next time it WAS up to me, though DP wasn't aware that I had decided it would all happen on my terms - he thought we were still 'debating' homebirth, but my mind was made up. He cottoned on. He gave over to more overriding and powerful mammalian instincts!
The baby is coming out of YOUR body - birth needs to happen on YOUR terms and your partners are either going to realise they don't call the shots here or they're going to get a say in something most of them are really quite unqualified in. You don't ask your dentist for advice about where to service your car.

[Cranky Kitten]

Would you say the same though if the father's reasons for not being okay with a homebirth had nothing whatsoever to do with cost or even belief that births just happen at hospital because that's the way it's always done but everything to do with previous experiences of birth in his family? For example, my SIL wound up needing an emergency caesar with my nephew, without which both of them would not be with us today. DH knows that this is not a common or normal occurrence, he knows that the vast majority of birthing women do not require that level of intervention, but he doesn't want to take the chance of winding up in a situation where it becomes necessary and isn't readily and quickly available.

[Cassius2]

With me wanting a HB, DP's objection was cost. I told him that if he really didn't want to pay for it, I'd take out a personal loan, because he was not getting me into a car during labour if not medically necessary ever again. It WAS his only objection and we worked around it.
I really don't see why a father should get a say in how things are done, unless he is optimising a peaceful birth - prioritising the mother's values, not his own. His own values don't have a place in the birthing space - the baby is not coming out of HIS body, and if he is going to be a liability in the birthing space he needs to be somewhere else. Just because fathers are accepted into the birth space now, it doesn't mean they need to be there, especially if they think their terms must be accommodated.
I know my view is really unpopular,, but women's rights are not really evolved if we are expected to respect the father's wishes in birth. If you do then that's fine and up to you, if you are also getting everything YOU want from the birth. If anything you want is compromised by something the father doesn't agree with, then I have major ethical problems with that.
It wasn't the 'bad old days' when birthing was women only - birth worked out really well back then, considering hygiene practices were questionable and women's diets were crap (because men got the best food and no-one thought women had to be healthy to make more people).
It's YOUR body birthing - birth is YOUR way and if your partner isn't on board with that, then consider that you don't have to do it with the father present and he must EARN his place in the birthing space by being supportive. Seriously, birth CAN happen without your partner there
Deferring to someone else's wishes for birth is just so problematic. I did that the first time and acquiesced to the financial advantage of a birth centre. Never again. And it wasn't horrible or traumatic, is just didn't align with my values in the end and I know that if it had been up to me completely I would have birthed at home. The next time it WAS up to me, though DP wasn't aware that I had decided it would all happen on my terms - he thought we were still 'debating' homebirth, but my mind was made up. He cottoned on. He gave over to more overriding and powerful mammalian instincts!
The baby is coming out of YOUR body - birth needs to happen on YOUR terms and your partners are either going to realise they don't call the shots here or they're going to get a say in something most of them are really quite unqualified in. You don't ask your dentist for advice about where to service your car.

my only gripe with this is that it is not simply "fathers" anyone that is not there 100% shouldnt be there.