To ask if people today don’t agree with ivf?!

@HornungTheHelpful of course people can have opinions about things that may hurt other peoples feelings. I am pro choice, but people are allowed to be against abortion and say that, even though there will probably be women who have had abortions hearing that opinion.

Infertility is not an "illness which requires medical attention", though.

Sex selection is illegal in the UK unless for medical reasons e.g. parents have a genetic illness that only causes issues for one sex.

Once someone has died they have no need for organs

Are you saying Judaism is wrong ?

Let’s hope that poster never needs a heart transplant. I could see a swift change of mind coming up 🤦🏻‍♀️😂.

Why only live donors would you support? Once someone has died they have no need for organs so don't see the issue with making use of them. Riskier for a live donor who say donated a kidney then the other one packed up

I have heard many bizarre statements about adoption but I have never heard anyone suggest it was easy!

I can’t imagine it’s easy to seek support in a society that seems to value DNA above all else. What is a “real” Mum/Dad? Someone who had a quick shag and went through with a pregnancy? Or someone who does every night waking, every illness, every school event, buys clothes and food, creates a safe and happy
home? But you’ve only got to look at the step parent board to see the MN view on “real” parenting. I’d imagine adoption is even harder.

They do but there are all sorts of reasons it doesn’t happen (eg the older siblings have been adopted by a family that doesn’t have space or financial resources for another child born later, one of the siblings may have additional needs that some families can’t meet or can’t meet in addition to another child, the parent/child relationship breakdown is with one particular child for known reasons)

Where we are, each adopted or fostered child needs to have their own room- so if I adopted a child, and then the bio parents go on to have another baby who is taken into care - unless that rule is overridden, I wouldn’t be able to adopt the new sibling without moving to a larger home so sadly that sibling group with be split up. But I don’t think it would be beneficial for the existing child to deny them a loving home because - hypothetically- there might be another sibling in the future .

Obviously in an ideal world, this wouldn’t happen but sadly it seems to be happening more frequently with the shortage of foster carers .

At present the research does not show a link between IVF and cancer, as far as I understand it/am aware.

Re mental health, IVF has destroyed mine. I have always struggled with PMS, now have PMDD because it screwed my hormones.

That being said, I see no problem with IVF. Yes, embryos get destroyed. But I think there is a false understanding on this; many of those embryos would not grow to childhood in any event. I had an embryo that didn’t take (and a later loss); the only reason I knew about the one that didn’t take was because it was IVF. Many embryos at a similar stage will not make it and simply be dismissed as a period. It is not wholesale destruction of human life. That being said I am desperate to use my last frozen embryo because I can’t bear the thought of it not getting its “shot”.

I agree there is a discussion to be had around (1) NHS funded IVF; (2) surrogacy/egg donation (though I don’t really have a problem with the latter - again not aware of any actual decent research suggesting it is bad for the child).

Re “infertility being nature’s method of population control”. What utter spurious nonsense. Nature doesn’t have a control. Our infertility stemmed from an infection my husband had that was not correctly treated. It was pure bad luck that he was treated negligently. Nothing to do with nature.

I think the big problem is - as with most things - people feel entitled to have an opinion on what others do that is none of their business, and on which they have no relevant knowledge or skillset from which to comment. Fine, have an opinion on whether the State should fund treatment, but it really is none of your business what someone else is doing outside of that, irrespective of your views/beliefs on embryo destruction, population control or Gaia.

It hurts every time someone says if I can’t reproduce naturally I shouldn’t have children, that IVF children are children that shouldn’t exist, or that they are against nature. I’m incredibly short sighted. By wearing glasses am I foiling nature’s plan for me to fall off a cliff/be consumed by wild hogs/insert “appropriate natural death here” and thus control population? It’s equally plausible. So where’s the line? And why do you get to decide my line? I accept that I don’t get to decide what is ok for you so why do you get to decide for me? Even on the internet - maybe especially on the internet - it doesn’t hurt to think before you express an ill- or un-informed opinion.

Yes they do.

Exactly! I have a friend who is the product of donor sperm (male factor infertility) and she doesn’t really give it a thought. She was always told though so it was never a big earth shattering secret.

I have another friend whose Mum had her at 16 following a ONS and the fact that she was a “mistake” who stopped Mum going to uni has always weighed heavily.

I am sure people would not want anyone to be miserable. Yes, some people find peace, but others, like my aunt, drink and die at 47.

Sometimes, nothing can help and women have no choice but surely everyone deserves a chance to try.

There is plenty of research which was done with people who were adopted in '1950s' style adoptions, where a pregnant woman was encouraged/coerced/forced to give up a newborn who was then placed with a 'good' family and never told/not told until an adult. There is plenty of research on attachment difficulties in children who don't grow up in their birth families.

In the UK now, adoption is done as the least worst option for children who cannot safely live with their birth families, because it is now understood what damage removing a child, even as a newborn, even when the child can't remember it, even when they are very loved afterwards, can do to the child. People who support surrogacy don't want to know that removing a child from it's birth mother causes damage, no matter how young the child is, no matter how loved and wanted it is by the receiving parents.

And yes before you ask, I have adopted. One of mine has no memory of their birth family, but is very clearly still impacted.

I thought SW always tried to keep sibling groups together especially full siblings.

It is slightly different though if it's children who adoption is better than care homes but really I find donor embryos a bit off in exactly the same way as I find using donor eggs or sperm.

Infertility causes much mental anguish. Of course it is comparable.

I’m not saying it’s something that all women can “just get over”. But there are women who will never have a baby. That is just a fact. In many cases they can get to a point where they are at peace with it. I have, it took a lot of time, but I got there, but I do find sometimes other people find that hard to accept. It’s like they’d prefer it if I was miserable.

We went through the IVF process and have one beautiful daughter because of it. For various reasons we chose not to have another so we're left with the decision of what to do with the remaining 3 embryos. We froze them for many years for exactly the reason of not wanting to let them go. We had counselling provided by the clinic and my thoughts were , I've got what I want now ( my daughter) so the embryos felt surplus to requirement ,it felt awful , it nearly broke me to think that I was casting them aside as unwanted. I knew what they could potentially grow into as I had my daughter. But they may not have worked and if I had two put back what about the third. Embryo adoption wasn't an option then ( not that I would have done that) and as much as I am eternally grateful for all those that went before me so I could have a child , research wasn't right for us either. So we took them to a special place of ours , kissed them told them we were sorry and buried them under a tree. I don't regret the decision but it still pains me now 15 years later. Thing is everyone's journey is different and we should respect the decisions made by those people along the way regardless of whether we agree with them or not 💕

Where's the actual proof for this then?

I plan to foster/adopt so I suppose my viewpoint is very different as it’s entirely possible my future children will have full siblings in other families and that will be part of our family dynamics. I’d hate to not offer a child a home because of ‘weirdness’

my own children are donor conceived - the one who is born is very proud of her identity! Raising with openness, pride and compassion goes a long way (especially from back in the day when it was very hush hush and undoubtedly caused difficulties!)

For many people it is something you never get over. I don't think it is helpful to position it as something women can just get over.

Sorry I think embryos adoption is up there with donor egg and sperm.
I think it's wrong.

My spares went to research, really training other embryologists. Putting them up for adoption wasn't an option due to my age.

But the thought of my kids having a full genetic sibling born to another family is just plain weird.
And I've no doubt children born in this way will track down bio family in the future causing all sorts of weird family dynamics.

Or they are clinics abroad in countries where fertility treatment is not regulated, who target and exploit vulnerable poor women to donate their eggs or sell their womb space to attract wealthy fertility tourists from countries where it is more regulated and controlled. Remember all the surrogate-born babies who were trapped in Ukraine when Russia invaded as their commissioning parents could not collect them?

Don’t get me wrong I am entirely in favour of IVF being provided in a controlled and regulated way both in the NHS and privately.

i think that’s the ‘point’ behind embryo adoption - people end up with more embryos than they need , don’t want to or can’t afford to pay for ongoing storage, so the embryo gets destroyed. With embryo adoption, a potential family ‘ adopts’ the embryo and takes on all storage and transfer costs.

sadly, I wasn’t in the position to have extra embryos - so if I want another child, I would either have to go through the whole process again - or I could give a home to an existing embryo - taking on all the associated costs. Arguably it’s a good option for people who struggle to make good quality embryos, have genetic reasons for pursuing IVF . And for people who have the ‘life begins at conception’ mindset - it’s more ethical than creating new embryos

Adoption is another mine field.

Couples who adopt need far more support than they are given when dealing with tweens and teens who shout things at them like "your not my real mum".

It's not the piece of cake it's made out to be.