“Beyond the immediate risks to her health and the health of her baby, when a woman chooses c-section, she decreases the chance that she will be able to get pregnant again and increases the chance that if she does get pregnant, the pregnancy will occur outside the uterus, a situation that never results in a live baby and is life-threatening to the woman. Furthermore, the risk of having an unexplained stillbirth doubles when a woman has had a previous c-section.”

“...the total number of pregnancies in which powerful and dangerous drugs are used is 60 percent, or nearly two-thirds of all births. It is rediculous to think that two-thirds of American women have such lousy uteruses that they must be whipped into shape with drugs in order to have babies.”

“...in early pregnancy her ability to tolerate heat stress improves by about 30 percent and in late pregnancy by at least 70 percent. Indeed, when a woman exercises at 65 percent of her maximum capacity in late pregnancy, her peak core temperature during exercise does not even get up to the level it was at rest before she became pregnant.”

“The choice not to have sex, not to be hurt. The choice not to risk pregnancy. And then... what if she had become pregnant? The choice not to abort? The choice not to have a child?”

“Ina May Gaskin is the most important person in maternity care in North America, bar none.”

“One way to measure a particular doctor's openness and attitude toward women in general is simply to ask about the doctor's opinion of midwifery.”

“And still, what a risk he'd taken. The woman was like an amateur car bomb: you never knew when she would explode or who she would take down with her when she did.”