To think couples who can’t afford IVF shouldn’t try to crowdfund it?

While I fully empathise with the struggle of wanting a child, it raises broader questions for me about where we draw the line when it comes to seeking financial help from strangers.

There's that WE again, OP. There is no we. There is only the individual when it comes to financially donating to somebody or not.

Why do you need a discussion about something that isn't within your gift to decide? This isn't about fiscal responsibility it seems purely to be you wanting to determine some parameters of what others should and shouldn't support - and that is none of your business.

It's odd that you'd pick IVF and crowdfunding as a suitable topic to 'discuss your broader questions' on?

IVF is very expensive. The older you get, the more expensive it becomes for a significant lower chance of success.

A 40 year old crowfunding for IVF is asking money for a dream. Spending £20-40k for a 20% or less chance of success can feel overly daunting and guilt ridden.

Asking people to provide £10, of they wish too is not, for most who agree to do so, such an anxiety led choice.

I've never seen such a request, but if I did, from friends or strangers, I would contribute without a thought.

Exactly, asking folk for money does result is some folk saying 'I have to donate, to show support for my friend'. I wish folk would stop asking all the time.

I can kind of understand where you're coming from OP.

It troubles me that because of scientific advances we now see infertility as something we can - and should - always be able to solve, so long as we preserve and throw an unlimited amount of money at it.

I have known a lady have her second baby in her fifties because she just kept going through countless IVF cycles for decades until eventually she got there. And I've known couples destroy their mental health and lose all their savings when really there was never much hope for them to conceive, and they were never successful in the end.

It doesn't sit well with me and I think rather than persevere with IVF whatever the financial, emotional or physical cost we should make adoption and fostering much more positive acceptable options.

This👆absolutely 100% agree right infertility is a medical condition and by the same logic if you choose to have a baby perhaps then everyone should pay for a private birth.

People seek financial help from strangers. It has always happened. From giving to a Foodbank to sponsoring a Scouts Camp, to medical care to a gap year, strangers have always - and will always - contribute.
There is no moral issue here that I can see.

You draw your own line wherever you like.

Every part of medical intervention is playing God. For a fairly trite example, I have asthma and without inhalers my body wasn't "supposed" to breathe properly. But with modern medicine my life has been significantly extended - instead of dying in infancy as I imagine I would have 1000 years ago, I'm alive and kicking, and expecting a baby (who I may well have passed on the faulty genes for asthma to). That's playing God and giving me a future that naturally wasn't "supposed" to happen. Just that IVF is much newer than many life saving treatments.

It takes a lot of guts and emotional sense to ask for help.
Good on them for asking.
I'm in a fortune position and have helped two strangers with money towards IVF.
Yes l did my research.
No better feeling in the world than being a mother and a Grandparent.

How awful, having a child is in no way similar to plastic surgery or the like. I have PCOS, and may need IVF. I would fund this myself for a few rounds but if family and friends offered to help I would of course appreciate it.

Life isn’t always fair, that’s true but I truly believe everyone should be given the opportunity to become an parent if they choose it.

Of all the random things people ask for on Crowdfunder, IVF is a wonderful thing to be able to contribute towards. I don't know enough much about some of my friends' finances, but if they didn't have the money, I'd be v sad if they were missing out on an actual CHILD. I'd far rather give for IVF than for little Arabella to go off and spend a few weeks "teaching" unsuspecting children in some random country.

Can’t say any of my friends have crowdfunded for IVF but if any of my closest circle did, I’d happily donate to them.

Infertility and baby loss shouldn’t be taboo.

They shouldn’t be but they are. There was a thread recently saying you shouldn’t post about it on Facebook, for example, that it is “attention seeking”. even though plenty of people post about their mental health struggles for example.

@AlmostAJillSandwich How can you judge whether a life was "supposed" to happen? I think that's a dangerous road to go down. Do you think that only some people are entitled to successful pregnancies?
To add, did your own childlessness made you feel that it wasn't "meant to be"?

A shift back to traditional societal support perhaps? Weddings and child raising used to be less personal responsibility and more societal responsibility.

You seem unduly bothered by knowing some people can't have a child. Life is unfair, it is sad.

With crowfunding its up to you if you give or not. Scroll on if you don't like it.

But given we have a falling birthrate my feeling is that IVF should be free for anyone who cannot conceive naturally.

I mean, i don't agree with IVF or any none natural means of conception at all, and especially not on the NHS. Nor do i agree with surrogacy. It's creating life that wasn't "supposed" to happen, and i don't think we should be able to play god like that, just because we technically can. On a massively over populated planet, infertility is a natural population control we actually kind of need. Is it fair some women only need look at a bare penis to get pregnant and have multiple, whilst others are infertile and have none? No, but children aren't, and shouldn't be considered a right to have.
There are so many unloved kids in foster care, and plenty up for adoption too. It isn't an easy route and there are disqualifying factors that mean some will never be approved, but its done in the best interests of the child, which unfortunately isn't a factor that's controllable in natural pregnancies, though those are the children that then get taken in to the system.

Totally agree that crowdfunding IVF is completely wrong, if you can't afford it by yourself or even with the help of your actual family and close friends, it's not the kind of thing you should be putting that guilt on strangers to help fund. And it IS guilt that would make strangers donate, because they feel bad for them not being able to conceive and understand that strong desire to have a child.

And before anyone comes at me to check my fertility privilege, I myself cannot have children and not by my own free choice.

I always thought that crowdfunding was to fund something that gave a return and I think the boundaries have stretched well beyond what it may have been intended to cover and funding lives is, for me, stepping over the boundary.

I dislike any form of pressure to give, whether workplace, chugging, adverts thrown in your face on television, or crowdfunding and think too many appeals are made too easily now and often by those that think they should have as they want and not what they can afford (not talking about IVF here, as that's not something that should be funded this way imo) but fancy funerals, or replacements for insurance premiums, or covering stupidity!

I suppose the problem is when it’s someone you know and they expect you to donate. They don’t even tell you this directly but often the unsaid expectations are there and you are judged if you don’t donate.
All these people who are saying “just don’t donate” I wonder if you always follow it in a real life when you disagree with a cause or don’t really want to donate. It’s difficult sometimes. So maybe this sort of frustration prompted OP’s question.

Can you be specific about what lines are blurred? That’s such a vague statement I can’t parse what your meaning is at all.

I don’t care what people crowd fund for but I wouldn’t contribute to a fund for IVF , not even for a friend .

People can share their situation if they choose to. Why is it taboo, OP?
A man at work is doing all sorts of things to raise money to pay for IVF for him and his wife. He's been very open and people have supported him. I don't see why that's bad.

introduces a public element that, for me, feels a bit uncomfortable - like it blurs those lines

Yeh this is a you issue.