I had a fantastic birth experience in the UK in an NHS birth centre and doubt I would have had a better birth experience had I spent tens of thousands of dollars in a hospital in the U.S. Actually, considering the high C-section rate in the U.S., the odds are much greater that I would have had a bad experience there.

Yes, the NHS has its faults. Perhaps they need more doctors and nurses and less administrators. But these are all problems that can be remedied. For all the talk about the inadequacies of the NHS, I haven’t had any problems with them yet. No system is perfect, and the woman who sent out that e-mail should realize that there are plenty of problems in American hospitals and that poor treatment isn’t just a phenomenon of the UK alone.

Beware of sending the woman a reply though, as I once learned the hard way about sending replies to these types of things. Once upon a time, a well-meaning relative sent out an e-mail about the war in Iraq when it first began. I think I wrote a relatively simple 3 line reply about how I disagreed with the war. Well, that got me two replies from friends of the relative who told me that I was not only unpatriotic but that I was also a Communist. Wow, imagine being a Communist and not even knowing you were one until someone divulged this information to you! The mind boggles.

Awesome rant. I’d send it. My parents once sent me that ridiculous email ranting about an EID stamp the post office was offering and I sent back a thorough debunking of it, called out the prejudice in it. If anything, I stopped getting those nasty, right-wing emails.

I’ve read a couple of your blog posts and have really enjoyed them.