Oh definitely. Giving birth outside of a hospital is a bad idea.

Not at all. Hospitals are lately notoriously unclean and eager to intervene and interrupt. A home setup can be very clean and healthy, and the hospital can still be there as a backup if extra equipment is required. Our midwives were quite equipped, though. Oxygen, IVs, fetal monitors, etc. Most of all, it's comforting at home, especially at such an important time

What's called for is research, not name-calling and doubting motivations.

There IS absolutely objective and scientific justification to challenge the way things are done at hospitals.

"In the United States, C-section rates have increased from just over 20% in 1996 to 33% in 2011.[3] This increase has not resulted in improved outcomes resulting in the position that C-sections may be done too frequently.[3]"

Now, how do all the factors weigh out? That's the research I'd like to see an informed and non-emotional party try to do. Most "opinions" on the topic only detract from the discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarean_section

It is important to consider long-term effects. It is very easy to only look at the immediate survival of the baby or of the mother. Subsequent births are endangered by C section scars. Each scar is an area of uterus that is deficient in multiple ways.

The eagerness to perform a C section is taking away the choice to have a large family. Early on, I didn't even know I'd want to choose a large family. If the first birth had been a C section, then ones afterward would more likely be C sections also, and I would have never gotten the chance to have a dozen kids. You can't have a dozen kids with a uterus that is turned into mincemeat.

To allow for the possibility of having a large family, avoiding that first C section is important. All the interventions that increase the chances of it (epidural, induction, etc.) should thus also be avoided.

Thinking about my children's welfare is /exactly/ what I'm doing by choosing homebirth. So many mothers are coerced into unnecessary C sections and other dangerous interventions at hospitals. Homebirth is a great way for the mother to actually be able to relax and birth safely. I choose homebirth because I'm being unselfish and thinking of the mother's and child's health

Yeah, you're right. Many hospitals encourage bad practices like gratuitous C-sections. (But then again many home birth proponents also encourage bad practices.)

I guess I'm saying that one should be less emotional at this point and more cautious and rational.

To quantify, at least in the US: your baby is twice as likely to die during birth in a birth outside of a hospital, compared to a birth at a hospital.

And this despite the fact that higher-risk deliveries are more likely to occur in a hospital, so that if the environments were equally dangerous, you'd expect the stats to tilt the opposite direction.

Source? I've never heard that and it sounds like fear mongering. Homebirth, for example, is statistically very safe

How much of that is Simpson's Paradox, though? What I'd think of as 'homebirths' are typically informed, prepared, healthy mothers with no known complications...