I will argue to the bloody death that illnesses, especially those associated with old age, ARE natural, they occur naturally, they are a part of life. However, I take your point about how illnesses are "something in your body isn't working as it should" whereas pregnancy and childbirth, generally speaking, is things working exactly as they are supposed to. That said, I would like to extend the comparison with heart attacks: People whose pregnancies/births are going perfectly well do not need to be in a hospital or undergoing medical procedures. People whose hearts are beating just fine do not need to be in a hospital or undergoing medical procedures. I think we agree on this. However, I reckon if Tom encountered someone who was not immediately dying but whose heart was doing painful or unusual things it wasn't meant to do, he would want to get them into hospital, for the dual purpose of (1) getting them monitored so that the problem can be identified and (2) getting them close to a unit that CAN deal with it if they do suddenly start dying. Similarly, as soon as something starts to go a little bit wrong with a pregnancy/birth, I would want to be monitored and placed in or at least near a hospital, just in case. Certainly, in either case, cardiac or birth complications, I wouldn't want to have to be actually at death's door before embarking on an uncomfortable twenty-minute ride to the nearest available assistance. That said, you wouldn't leap straight in for a bypass 'to be on the safe side' and it would be downright dangerous to start waving a defib around when it wasn't necessary - so I do agree that inducing labour and mucking about beyond simple monitoring when things aren't at a life-threatening stage probably does more harm than good.