If They Want One

New guidelines have been issued in Britain regarding whether or not a woman should give birth via caesarean section. The conclusion is that even when not medically necessary, women should have one, if they want one.

Hear, hear. About time common sense prevailed over the impulse to micro-manage every aspect of the damned thing from the moment a woman falls pregnant. I'm told women now tear into each other over whether they had an epidural. Could you possibly act more self-important? Oh yeah, you probably could. There are the superiority stances of breastfeeding, home birth, vaginal delivery, organic babyfood, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, teaching ancient Greek in-utero*, swimming with dolphins, thinking correct thoughts, and swaddling baby in nothing but hand-spun and loomed flax that was locally grown in a former parking lot-turned urban agriculture cooperative around the corner from the off license.

Where I live, you can no longer have an optional C-section, and now we have something else to bully women over.

*Not that they do any better with it when they are six and a half, but at least you can send them to their room with flash cards and insist they call you, Olbios Tyrannos.