I’d like to thank everyone who responded. You all had such passionate and well thought out responses.
MDC is a lot of things to a lot of different people and our smilies reflect much of our personalities and beliefs. However, we are advocates for Natural Family Living and as such, we have core values that include natural childbirth. Does that exclude hospital birth? I don’t believe it does. Mothering has even hosted articles on having a birth as natural as possible in a hospital setting:
http://www.mothering.com/articles/pr.../hospital.html But we need not offer graphics to allow everyone to express every experience they have. We have to draw a line somewhere and it is better to do so on the far side of natural then on the near edge of mainstream. That being said, we will not be offering a specific smilie that depicts hospital birth.
All births are unique, just as all our children are unique. We would never negate the experience of one mothers birth over another. I honestly feel that most women on MDC make a birth plan based on the knowledge they have and there own instincts and I applaud anyone who makes an educated birth plan.
I have locked this thread from further discussion because I feel it has been toughly discussed. Both Cynthia and I have read the posts here and appreciate and respect all sides.
Please feel free to PM me if you have any further questions or concerns.
Much gentleness to everyone
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: Die Thread~ Die!
:
:
. Or, how about 
: minus the thermometer. My head hurts after this thread.
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