Firstly I wrote a lovely long post & it got sent off to Pluto... So I'm back with ironing completed...

Inanna, I think you've written some brilliant things in this thread but clearly in Meringue's case it is the choice of the patient, not the practitioner.
Perhaps Fiona you have misunderstood me. What I was meaning.. There is a growing number of practitioners that believe that c/section should not be granted due to maternal request. That it should not be a birth option unless for a medically substantiated reason... That we could see insurance companies being unwilling to cover maternally requested c/sections that are not medically valid.

I also absolutely disagree with the taxi driver metaphor. We will have to agree to disagree on this one.
And of course that's fine it's a fairly obscure relation to draw but one I have heard & can see the reasoning...

I know you see birthing as a rite of passage towards motherhood. I, and I'm sure many women like me, just don't.
I hear you don't see birth in the same way as myself & I also know many (in fact most I would offer!) don't either... However, my challenge is to educate, to inform and to stretch the women I touch to consider that there just might be more to birth than having a baby. That the process of birthing our children teaches us intricate and vital life lessons if we submit to the process of evolving the feminine. That the process of educating, of learning, of listening deeply to our inner self, to sending out the tendrils of ourselves to other women & to begin to form a tribe of women chosen as "our" women. That this process grows a person into a Woman...

Like I said, we will have to agree to disagree but I think you should respect that not everyone comes from the same starting position as yourself.
I am not much a fan of shoulds... I should do what I am doing! However respect is something I try very very hard to exercise. I think it is erroneous to assume that speaking a different truth, sharing accumulated knowledge & challenging ideas or beliefs is disrespectful. In this case it would be quite incorrect. For I respect the OP's decision. That does not mean I will not challenge it kindly.

As you've pointed out, it's all very well saying that caesareans are riskier but if the risk is quite small then they are riskIER not riskY. We always go off at obs who say that the risk of a uterine rupture from a VBAC is risky and point out that it's not THAT risky in the whole scheme of things so why do we make comparisons that imply that caesareans are much riskier than VBs? We can't have it both ways.
Just an interesting aside. I am just struck that surgeons have discredited homebirth with morbidity rates no less than their c/section rate.... Now there's an interesting angle huh?

Sorry, back to the quote. Of course.. Riskier to die having a c/section. But are we only concerned about death? We are not discussing the frequency of babies being tranferred to NICU/SCN from a c/section (largely for breathing problems) & other affects on infant and mother that don;t fall into the mortality stats...