Where's this perception coming from that in life or death situations in the hospital that it takes 10-15 minutes to get a patient in the OR? I had a friend who was in a life or death situation, and the nurses and doctors literally ran her down the hall to the OR. Usually laboring women already have an IV in place (even if they don't have it hooked up), so we're talking seconds before they are wheeled somewhere to get the baby out. At home, you have to wait for the emergency vehicle and deal with potential traffic. Plus the transfer into the hospital, etc.
But the biggest risk to birthing at home is to the baby and not the mother (Gin's story and others excepted, and her story should really give any mother pause). If you have the stomach for it, read through these heart wrenching stories some time (
http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/). Yes, these might be extreme cases, but they nonetheless happened. And any information/cites coming out of Britain should not be considered for American homebirth, since midwives in Britain receive significantly more training than most American midwives.
The superbug scare is rather overblown by midwives and natural advocates as well, not to mention the horrible fear of c-sections. They should certainly be minimized, but how many women do each of us know that have had c-sections and are perfectly fine? A c-section is not a death sentence, but the way natural birth advocates discuss it you would think it is.
Although rather vociferous herself, Dr. Amy Tuteur and her website the Skeptical OB is informative and breaks down some of the arguments, providing various citations and statistics (although one of her main points is that midwives are notoriously tight lipped and won't release mortality rates).