Should IVF be available to lesbians?

I completely agree with you and believe that commercial or state provided gametes should be made illegal, primarily for the child’s rights (to their biological relationships/heritage and to not be bought and sold), but also for similar reasons that prostitution, commercial trade in human organs and surrogacy are/should be illegal.

For the sake of clarity it is important to make the distinction between rights and freedoms.

In the “equality fertility rights” arguments, the freedoms and choices of prospective parents, fertility scientists and commercial gametes traders, to do what is most advantageous, convenient and pleasing for themselves, are wrongly framed as “rights”.

IVF comes with a huge number of ethical issues that are regulated because it doesn’t just involve the person exercising their ’freedom’; it involves the rights of others not to be exploited for their gametes/womb, and more importantly it involves the individual who will result from the process who has no ability to have a say of how they are created.

Not necessarily IVF doesn't always involve donor eggs or sperm - mine certainly didn't.

I agree it would be better and healthier all round if IUI were cheaper. But the UK fertility industry is a racket.
Likewise IVF if there was a 'no frills' version available if would be beneficial to gay/straight couple and single women but if you pay for IVF in the UK you have to shop at Waitrose, there isn't an Aldi version available. I would have been more than happy to have a prepacked sandwich and vending machine coffee after treatment but I had to eat before I left and the food available was posh restaurant standard, I didn't need a room like a boutique hotel for a few hours - I would have been fine in a cubicle with just a bed for me and a chair for DH. Women aren't (well weren't when I had my cycles 10+ years ago) told that it is cheaper (and safer) to have egg collection done under sedation rather than general anesthesia - I discovered this as I don't have a great reaction to generals so try to avoid them.

So it makes an absurdity like ‘a woman who can’t produce sperm is the same as a man who can’t produce sperm’ seem feasible.

I agree that it is quite absurd. In many ways.

But I think from the point of view of a woman who is receiving fertility treatment to conceive a child, then the problem is a partner who cannot produce sperm. It is really an individual woman being treated in these situations, rather than a couple. Even if we pretend otherwise.

Logically, choosing to not treat the lesbian but to treat the straight woman is a decision based solely on her sexuality.

Now, whether that is reasonable or not is a different question and people will have different views. Some people will take the view that any woman who wants to become pregnant but whose chosen partner can’t facilitate that should receive fertility treatment. Others will want to consider the differences between a male partner who should be able to produce the required gamete but cannot due to dysfunction of his reproductive system and a partner who simply would never be able to produce the required gamete at all.

And, as you say, there is an argument potentially that lesbians know they need to find a man if either of them want to conceive a child. But, equally, it’s conceivable that women whose partner is infertile could be told to find themselves a different man who can produce the required gamete.

Gay men are an entirely different thing because neither of them can be treated to produce a pregnancy. One of them can donate sperm to the process, which is a pretty limited ‘treatment’. They require another woman to be treated so she can conceive and then gestate a pregnancy. It’s just not comparable.

No clear answers there, but it’s not simple and does really require a proper discussion that doesn’t start from the idea that all adults are entitled by right to have a child (produced to order) regardless of any biological factors.

The problem is freedom for one individual often impacts on the rights of another. Freedom is not without limits. You may be free to abandon your baby by leaving then in the care of a reasonably responsible adult. You are not free to abandon them in a ditch to die to exposure.

IVF comes with a huge number of ethical issues that are regulated because it doesn’t just involve the person exercising their ’freedom’; it involves the rights of others not to be exploited for their gametes/womb, and more importantly it involves the individual who will result from the process who has no ability to have a say of how they are created.

my instinct is to just let people get on with things unless there's a very good reason why not

I think this is because there is a difference between ‘freedom’ and ‘rights’.

In a free democracy, people have the freedom to do unethical and immoral things which don’t break the law, but this doesn’t mean they have the ‘right’ to do it.

For example, people have the freedom to abandon their children, to have affairs, to give one of their children preferential treatment over another, to tell lies, all sort of uncaring, cruel and selfish things. But we don’t have the ‘right’ to do these things.

We have the right in a free democracy to live without excessive state interference in our lives, and that gives us the freedom to be immoral and unethical.

IUI certainly wasn’t available on the NHS back then for single women or lesbians. The cost of getting donor sperm from a sperm bank is very high in the UK, (can easily be more than £1,000 per “straw”) and each attempt at IUI costs at least several hundred pounds on top of that. Also, the success rate per attempt isn’t great, perhaps only around 25%.

Some women (like my friend and a lesbian couple she knows) had unsuccessful IUI before moving on to IVF. Others like me, went straight to IVF.

I agree it would be better and healthier all round if IUI were cheaper. But the UK fertility industry is a racket.

yes, I agree

my instinct is to just let people get on with things unless there's a very good reason why not (like the thing they want to do involves exploiting others, like surrogacy).

so I think I'm probably OK with IVF for fertile women who for one reason or another don't want to conceive in the usual way. they will do the hard and dangerous bit, namely gestation and birth, themselves

but I'm not OK with it for a man in the same circumstances. To get a child he has to exploit a woman and put her in danger. not OK

Out of interest, was it just the risks of STDs that put you off conceiving naturally?

@BernardBlacksMolluscs
Biologically two females cannot produce a baby naturally. Similarly a single woman cannot product a baby on their own without male - I agree. Neither should be able to access NHS IVF - I must admit I am unsure in my own mind about whether it should be allowed privately but as it is I accept it.

I mean that homosexuals are not infertile by nature of being homosexuals.

Just like single people are not infertile just because they're single.

Infertility means unable to conceive a baby through natural means. Lesbian sex is not the natural way to conceive a baby. But a lesbian may well be able to conceive when sperm is introduced into the equation.

Just not sure how to explain it any more clearly. This is just basic biology!

if IVF is being performed for a lesbian woman (who for IVF purposes is the same as a single woman), the sperm isn't generated by magic. it comes from a man

biological facts all the way

By calling homosexuality ‘infertility’, it conflates issues.

So it makes an absurdity like ‘a woman who can’t produce sperm is the same as a man who can’t produce sperm’ seem feasible.

Where have we heard absurdities like that before?

Oh yes - a man who can’t have periods is no different from a woman who has had a hysterectomy.…

I don't understand - if you mean we don't know whether they are infertile that is a fair point. However, if the the couple is same sex they cannot achieve a pregnancy naturally even if both are fertile. Therefore in my view IVF is not supporting what is a biological fact

Right. It's like saying you're infertile because your partner's on the pill or you're using condoms.

It's not what it means!

Lesbians and gay men are not infertile! That sounds honestly really homophobic to my ears.

Infertility has a specific medical meaning.

Just to add I do think that single women and lesbians should have access to assisted conception in a safe and legal way. I don't think that funded IVF as soon as they decide to start a family is fair access.

I might have missed this in responses, but I've asked several times if the aim is equality then lesbian and single women would have to try 12 rounds of artificial insemination before getting anywhere near IVF.

As a woman in a heterosexual relationship to get IVF on the NHS we had to;

Be trying for 12 months without any positive tests
Be under 35
I had to be under a BMI of 30
We had to have no previous children
DH needed at least 2x sperm tests
I had several blood tests and ultrasound scans
We both had STD and HIV tests
We had to wait for various appointments to discuss results and referrals.

In all it was 2.5 years from first deciding to have a baby to our first cycle of IVF. We had unexplained infertility so technically fertile but not having a baby.

Why should other women bypass all that and get IVF?

It’s helpful to not misuse the word ‘infertile’. It has a clear medical meaning and which is not “currently not having unprotected heterosexual sex”.

When my wife and I enquired about our options for starting a family the GP said to us 'can you not just get a male friend to get you pregnant?'

I cannot imagine she would've said the same to a heterosexual couple.

well no. because if a man and a woman are having regular unprotected sex and the woman doesn't become pregnant, that's a bit of a puzzle

if two women are having regular unprotected sex and neither of them become pregnant, that's not exactly a head scratcher.

your mind might be amazing, and you might be gay, but your mind and sexuality inhabit a body that doesn't care about those things. only a man and a woman can conceive and only a woman can gestate a child.

trust me when I say that I know that's inconvenient. but it's just the facts

I don't see why it shouldn't be available even!

A same sex couple may or may not be infertile. Just because they can't have a baby together doesn't mean they are independently infertile.

But anyway - I don't see why it should be be available to them. They can't make a child together so they need some help.

A same sex couple are infertile. Some heterosexual couple are infertile. A single woman is infertile. The reasons for the infertility are different - in some heterosexual couples there may be an actual medical issue like blocked tubes or sperm that don't swim well etc. Why should infertile people not all get state help to assist conception, does it matter whether the cause is medical and for others social (same sex relationship/desire to conceive without a man)? If single women and lesbians get artificial insemination by donor, IUI, IVF etc to assist conception then why shouldn't gay men should have equal access to assisted conception - surrogates, egg donation?

When my wife and I enquired about our options for starting a family the GP said to us 'can you not just get a male friend to get you pregnant?'

I cannot imagine she would've said the same to a heterosexual couple.

I've said this on all the other threads but I'll say it again.

If a straight couple with male factor infertility are offered IUI with donor sperm on the NHS then lesbian couples should get this too.

If IUI does not work for the straight couple and they are offered IVF on the NHS then the lesbian couple should be offered it too.

And for the last time these scenarios are not comparable to surrogacy and men renting wombs.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/artificial-insemination/

By the way, one of my friends had IVF as a single woman, several years before I did. She had to check something with her GP first and the GP said, “why are you doing this? Go and have a one night stand or something.” We were both shocked he actually said that, but given that IVF isn’t free of health risks either, he may have had a point.

I am very confused by this. My understanding is that IUI is straightforward, safe and available on the NHS. As others have said other options are a known donor or purchase of donor sperm. For a lesbian couple or a single women who wishes to have their own child surely this would be the first step rather than either a ONS or IVF ?