Excuse me, "Your Eminence", but maybe you should stroll through your cemetery.

[Ilsa]

Browse the section including graves for the 19th century and early 20th century. I'm sure you'll find plenty of graves for young women who died in childbirth.

Ask the OBs at your Catholic hospital how many lives (and health) of mothers and babies are saved by C-sections, blood transfusions, antibiotics, and other medical procedures.

Maybe then you'll realize that while Mother Nature intended pregnancy and birth to be "natural", in reality it has become a medical condition.

And Joe Scab, how about asking the only woman, a parent, at the table what she thinks of the priest's comment about pregnancy not being a medical condition.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. So, isn't erectile dysfunction a natural occurence as well?

[RC]

2. Shhhhh....

Stop already injecting reality into the 'debate'.

[Ilsa]

5. Yeah, so are ectopic pregnancy, infertility,

40-week fetuses that haven't turned, blood clots, pre-eclampsia, etc ...

But never mind if the mother Just Dies during pregnancy or childbirth, according to some religions.

[GeorgeGist]

3. Back in the good ol days ...

Catholic hospitals performed D and Cs without batting an eye.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. "C-sections, blood transfusions, antibiotics, and other medical procedures"

Is this even a point of contention?

[Ilsa]

6. From a philosophical point of view, to some people,

this is a point of contention, that pregnancy and childbirth are "too medicalized." that is, until modern medicine saves a pregnancy or mother or child after birth, or even successfully treats fertility. I've even had nursing instructors who proclaimed that pregnancy isn't a medical condition.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. I'm not a nurse but childbirth *seems* natural enough

Sure you can get that spinal-blocky-thingy and/or may require an intervention but that seems to be the exception that proves the rule for the vast majority of birth everywhere since ever.

[Ilsa]

8. One statistic was

1500 maternal deaths per 100,000 internationally for nonindustrialized nations. But that doesn't account for the number of fetal problems, like brain hypoxia or shoulder nerve damage in the neonate, which can easily occur because of labor problems, like shoulder dystocia in the birth canal, which are frequently managed by c-section delivery.

The c section rate, unfortunately, also includes some elected c-sections, and in some doctors' practices, required C sections because it is a second pregnancy after a first delivered by c section.

Pregnant women's health is also monitored during the pregnancy, especially for Pre-eclampsia, which can result in maternal strokes, excessive bleeding, and death.