Childbirth rights- are you pro-choice?

This is a very interesting thread. I'm still in two minds, having read all of your comments.

I think part of the dilemma comes from birth being both medical (complications) and non-medical (normal low risk birth). And disagreements about where the line is. I don't think there is enough evidence about risk in pregnancy for anyone to be categorical about many situations (although some are clearer) - as people have pointed out the policy on VBACs has changed recently.

So, it's a grey area. And also a sensitive area, with new life involved. And also the only major involvement with the healthcare system many people will have until old age. So 'healthy' people are rightly resentful of being 'medicalised' when they may not feel it's warranted.

Clearly, where the intervention of medical professionals is required they must be allowed to follow clinical procedure - they're trained after all and those procedures are designed to keep us safe. However, the standard rules of informed consent apply just as they would for any other medical intervention.

But I think the above circumstances have to be taken into account - it's unreasonable to expect women to go along with medical advice blindly, a higher level of information is required. It's not like breaking your leg, which is more clear cut. And with that goes greater choice about the outcome.

Do I think women should have absolute choice? Difficult.

To refuse treatment, yes. That's the right of anyone offered medical treatment.

To be supported in a natural birth in order to avoid medicalisation of birth, if medicalisation is not justified? Yes.

To demand treatment? No, as that goes over the line into the medical sphere where I think we need to live by the rules of healthcare provision (unless by exercising the choice to go against medical advice, we waive the right to complain/seek compensation if something goes wrong). There's obviously also a cost lens, funds are not infinite for healthcare.

However, all risk factors being relatively equal, women should certainly have a choice between medical options. And much more needs to be done to take the wishes of women more seriously - there are too many stories of women not being heard when they say their pain is unbearable, or they feel that something is wrong with their labour, or that they are terrified of birth.

I think it's an important debate, because approximately half the population will experience this at least once in their lives and it does have a lot of undercurrents about the wider position of women in society. I don't think the current situation is ideal, so I think we need to keep poking things to improve the situation.

Jedward I'm glad it went well but cost would come in to it if your baby needed special care.

Some babies don't get the care they need due to lack of cots. If a woman's right to choose means some one ele's baby suffers is that not a feminist issue?

hcp,drs are accountable for interventions.this isn't a case mum singularly bear consequence
health interventions outcome affect the individual,the staff,the child
I think op grasp of health,and decision making is woeful,but she's got a line she's sticking too

If a woman asked a Dr for a procedure/operation which wasn't the safest choice and he agreed to do it as she was making an informed choice, if there was a bad outcome the Dr would still be held accountable and could potentially get Into trouble.

no.its not only the woman in the clinical decision making,she'll be supported by team
this is most definitely not a singular decision.its a health decision facilitated by info hcp provides
of course the decision is shared as its assisted health intervention.the mother,the staff,the institution

Clinicians have to make decisions all the time -in all areas of health not just childbirth- the consequences of which other people have to live with! To question that is at best faintly ridiculous. Any operation etc would normally be on the basis of informed consent- as in informed by the expert clinician not google/some half-baked pressure group

I had an induction at just over 33 weeks actually. I had a risk of a complication from a previous pregnancy recurring, which ultimately could have lead to still birth or severe disability as a result of hypoxic brain damage.

The obstetrician was very against this, wanted me to go full term, and I had to fight to be allowed to do this. The likelihood of the recurrence was very small, but the outcome much worse than problems associated with late prematurity. I preferred the higher risk of a less serious outcome.

The obstetrician thought I was bonkers; should I have been denied the right to make this decision because she disagreed with my logic? Rational adults can come to two different but equally rational and valid conclusions on the same set of facts.

Cost not an issue as I would have been induced at 39 weeks anyway, the disagreement was only about timing.

Yes, I'm very glad she was supported by midwives. And she had a lovely home birth!

I know of a really, really high risk woman who had a home birth against advice. She was about as high risk as it gets. Drs told her she was risking the life of her baby and possibly her own.....they weren't exaggerating.

She had a home birth.....it's the one thing a dr can't stop. The woman can just decline to come to hospital. She was well supported my midwives in her decision, once it was realised that's she was sticking by her decision. At the end of the day it was her choice.

actually no the woman doesn't just have to live with it whatever happens
trained staff are accountable,have professional regulatory bodies who investigate poor practice
your grasp of health care,resource and risk,and professional responsibilities is woeful

In America women as incubators is more of a reality. www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/buckhalter-mississippi-stillbirth-manslaughter

you quite simply have an agenda that you're sticking too irrespective of contrary pov
women as incubators might sound really right on in socialsciencetatic essay
but it's hollow quip with no substantive basis

I support a woman's right to choose but I also support any individual hcp's right not to be involved in something they believe is very dangerous.
If I was a MW or doctor (I'm not) I would not be able to support somebody choosing a course of action I believed to be deadly - but if all hcp's refuse to support a choice then really the woman doesn't have that choice. It's a conundrum I have no answer for.

Clinicians are held accountable and therefore cannot just follow their "personal bias" (and, btw, obstetricians are FAR more likely to be a she than a he!) They have evidenced-based protocol to follow and for a reason.

Safety -of the mother and baby/ must be paramount and therefore choice at times is secondary.

There is no way a high risk woman should have a home-birth (and i speak as someone who had a homebirth!)