UK midwives call for epidural fee.

While I’ve always been interested in midwifery and the discussion of how the western world increasingly treats full-term pregnancy like a medical condition, this seems a bit much. The Royal College of Midwives in the UK are suggesting that women giving labor should pay for epidurals.
Louise Silverton, RCM Deputy General Secretary, elaborates:

“Epidurals provide effective pain relief but, where there is no clinical indication that they are necessary, they can significantly raise the likelihood of other interventions such as Caesarean section occurring.
The UK already has an extremely high Caesarean rate and, as the acknowledged experts in normal pregnancy, labour and birth we midwives need to debate ways in which we might help to bring this rate down.”

They believe that charging women for the drug may decrease its usage and lead to healthier labors.
RCM will be holding a conference in May where they will vote whether they should start lobbying at health departments to start a charge. The education and research committee called the motion, requesting that epidurals should be “free to women who have a definite need of it” but states that a fee should be “levied for all other women who desire an epidural.”
Whaa? But how will that be decided? And who will decide? While a fifth of women choose to have an epidural during labor, it seems that this may a fight over something that should be a woman’s decision, no? And let’s not even get into the possible effects on poor women. But maybe RCM didn’t think about that; after all, they are royalty.
Thoughts?