When Elizabeth Chloe Romanis first considered the ethics of chosen caesarean sections, she was listening to a radio programme her husband had sent her. The programme was about how some NHS trusts refused to give medically unnecessary C-sections to people who wanted them. “He sent it to me like: ‘Have you heard this?’ and obviously I got very annoyed,” says the biolaw researcher at Durham University.
Someone phoned in and asked, why should the NHS offer the choice when childbirth is natural and surgery costs money? Irritated, Romanis thought someone from her field ought to argue for the right to choose. “So that’s what I did,” she says.