I voted Other.

I do not think that raising should be removed from the game - even in the original 2E game the spell existed and the issue was seriously adressed in the Book of Priestcraft on p. 83

However then in 2E not all Gods granted major access to the sphere of Necromancy which restricted the number of clerics able to cast the spell and the level of the Cleric (9th) required to cast the spell reduced the number of persons able to cast the spell even more.

If one would not want to redesign the sphere system for 3.5E then the rule could simply be that the gods other than Nesirie, Ruornil, Sera and Kriesha NEVER grant Raise Dead as normal spell. Avani only as "quest spell" (p. 93 BoP).

"Death is sacred" from the Book of the Righteous could be one of the reasons if you use 3.5 rules and assume that all gods could grant the spell but don´t for other reasons.

Regarding the scion levels - if one uses scion levels in the game then why not use an existing rule for losing something? The Shadowdancer in the DMG loses 200 XP per Shadowdancer level when his shadow companion is destroyed with halve lost if he makes a DC 15 Fortitude save. A scion would then lose 200XP per scion level in case of death and if his XP drop below the point of the next lower level he loses scion levels first.