Baby snuggles and "fighting your corner"

A friend came over today with her 9 week old little girl and we had some lovely cuddles.
We also had a long chat about what medics advise and what you can do about changing their minds or getting them to see your point of view at least.

My friend, we'll call her B, had had 2 previous c-sections, one an emergency following an early labour and the other a planned "elective" section - I've put "elective" in quote marks because it always looks like you have made a choice, when the truth is that there's often no choosing about it at all. It can be a bit like saying that the man in the burning building chose to jump out of the window!
In B's case her second section happened because the hospital weren't keen on VBAC (for clarity I should say that this was 6 yrs ago and in the North East of England) and she, fairly inexperienced, young and a long way from home, didn't realise she actually had a choice. Her second was also therefore born before 40 weeks as part of the plan.
6 years later though, when she found she was pregnant with her third child, she was determined that things could be different.
She did her research, hired a supportive doula who knew the local hospital well and she dug her heels in a bit. And the Consultant (who is also my consultant) agreed, after a lot of discussion, that she could have a trial of labour.
In the event, B went into labour at 41 weeks, and though she had her trial of labour and got right to the pushing stage, she ended up delivering T via the "sunroof". And during the section her uterus ruptured, in several places, it was apparently paper thin and perforating at the consultant's touch.
Thankfully, B feels she laid her issues to rest she was given a chance to labour and deliver naturally, gave it her all and though, ultimately, it wasn't possible, she is at peace with that.
The consultant feels that she should on no account consider having further children, and it's this B is struggling with - I can understand that, it's one thing to decide your family is complete and quite another to be told that it is.
I know of plenty of marriages that have foundered because the couple couldn't agree on where their family was "done". To have an outsider tell you that must be incredibly hard to deal with.

All this has made me think about medical advice and how far we should be asking doctors and nurses to go against their instincts and protocols. That's not to say I think B was wrong, I know other women who have had successful VBA2C and been much better for avoiding a third lot of abdominal surgery. But where do we draw the line?

More importantly where do I draw the line?
I haven't actually reached any conclusions yet....