Should IVF be available to lesbians?

@Sometimeswinning most of the people using surrogacy that I can across in IVF clinics were doing so due to cancer treatment. They had eggs/embryos frozen before undergoing chemo and hysterectomy. The two are interlinked and that is why respect for one ties into another. They aren't renting a womb. They are circumventing a horrible consequence of cancer. In the UK it isn't a commercial process (only costs can be covered) and in most cases friends / family are used. I don't think the word rent is applicable.

What? I think you're confusing two separate things. People who have cancer do most definitely deserve respect. People who use surrogacy most definitely do not need or deserve respect. Hth!

I think it should be available to anyone able to offer a child a good, stable home including lesbian couples.

@SquidwardBound yeah it does sum me up. Someone who stands up and shows respect for cancer survivors who froze their eggs/embryos and chose the surrogacy journey to become parents only to have a dick like you say they aren't owed any respect.

Lovely. i think that post sums you up.

I will say that I definitely do think that assisted conception is a different thing to assisted gestation.

Assisted conception still has ethical
issues worth properly exploring. But assisted gestation is not ok - regardless of sexuality.

I don’t feel the need to be respectful of surrogacy. Whatever the reason people feel entitled to use what is a rent a womb service.

@ÉireannachÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉ why do you not support funded IVF for anyone?

I’m not a lesbian. I’m a heterosexual mother of three children all conceived with no medical intervention (and very easily indeed).

I’ve also said on this thread more than once that I don’t think there is such a thing as fertility rights or a basic human right to parenthood, however heartbreaking infertility may be for some people. And that there are definitely complex issues around gamete donation that are in sufficiently explored because we’re so busy pretending having a child of ‘your own’ is a human right.

I don't think anyone should get ivf, regardless of sexuality.

That is fine. A coherent position. Im
not going to tell you that you must support IVF.

But I do not agree that biologically or ethically the situations for lesbians and gay men are identical.

Lesbians may not be able to conceive a child without outside help but, once conceived, a lesbian can gestate that child. IVF is only one way of achieving conception.

Gay men can neither conceive nor gestate a child without outside help.

That means that it’s not hypocritical to say that it’s not the same situation. The requirements for gay men to produce a baby are completely different to the requirements for lesbians or couples experiencing male fertility.

The post title isn't about surrogacy. It's about IVF. And I do believe lesbians with underlying infertility should be entitled to funded IVF.
There are many people who can CONCEIVE who cannot carry out gestation who are in a heterosexual relationship eg, bicornate uterus, removal of cervix due to cancer treatment.

I haven't read back through any of your posts but the fact you use the term 'rent a womb' gives me all I need to know. It has a disrespectful tone. I'm not entirely sure how this post even evolving into being more about surrogacy than IVF

Two women in a lesbian couple cannot gestate a baby without a man.

I don't know how to articulate it any clearer but I suspect I'm chatting with a lesbian who is unable to see my very basic clear point because of her own personal bias.

I don't think anyone should get ivf, regardless of sexuality. I believe people supporting lesbians having access to fertility treatment in the same way a hetero woman is, are hypocrites for not supporting gay or single men in their pursuit for their own "biological child".

I believe IVF should be available for ANYONE who is struggling to conceive

The distinction between conceiving and gestating matters.

IVF can assist with conception - the fertilisation of an egg with a sperm.

But whether one of the purple can gestate the baby is a very different thing.

That is why gay men and lesbians cannot be treated equally. Or, actually, they can be…. Fertility treatment to aid conception is pointless if you can’t gestate the pregnancy. Two gay men cannot gestate a foetus.

If you have to rent a womb/woman’s body to do that, it’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Whereas biologically no man ever is gestating a child. Two men need to use a woman to not just conceive but to gestate a baby. That’s an entirely different prospect.

Haven't read the entire thread just bits and bobs but I believe IVF should be available for ANYONE who is struggling to conceive. Eg, poor sperm motility, about to have cancer treatment, endometriosis, lost Fallopian tubes due to ectopic etc.
I've had 6 rounds of IVF due to endometriosis and adenomyosis. Now have a 13 month old little boy. A lot of people say there is no 'right to conceive' however in many cases the underlying issue has prevented natural conception due to misdiagnosis/lack of treatment etc - this was what happened to me. Most lesbian women have to try a certain number of IUI cycles before moving to IVF anyway. I don't know many CCGs that fund IVF immediately UNLESS their is a known reason for infertility.

lesbians are women and in general can get pregnant, so long as there is sperm involved.

the IVF related comparator here is a heterosexual couple where the issue is that the man isn’t able to produce sperm of sufficient quality/quantity.

In either case, there’s a woman in the equation who could get pregnant if her partner produced sperm.

Unless you’re looking to argue that IVF involving donor sperm should not be allowed. That’s a different situation - and still bound by biological considerations. The heterosexual couple where he’s infertile still won’t be biologically capable of conceiving.

You want to discuss biology? 😏 well OK, let's start with biology dictates lesbians don't get pregnant.....

Not quite…

Because most lesbians are biologically capable of becoming pregnant so long as there is sperm involved.

Literally no men are capable of producing a baby without a woman to put her body through the enormous strain and risk that is pregnancy.

Sperm donation is not comparable, since most men ejaculate all the bloody time and it is most definitely not a big deal. Or detrimental.

The treating people equally thing relates to woman being treated equally in terms of whether they can become pregnant - and receive the same NHS treatment (including donated sperm) / regardless of their sexuality.

Men don’t have wombs. So, even if egg donation weren’t already a much more invasive process than sperm donation, they need to rent a female body to gestate a foetus. And often want donated eggs to further cement that status as mere incubation chamber.

Biology matters.

But why?

IVF treatment is given where a totally fertile woman cannot conceive because of her male partner’s infertility. I don’t really see what difference it makes if the partner cannot produce sperm because they’re an infertile man or a woman. The situation is much the same.

Unless you think IVF should only be offered to heterosexual couples where they’re both infertile? After all, she could just leave him for someone with higher quality sperm.

There are lots of questions we don’t sufficiently explore about using donated sperm in IVF. But the whether the biological mother is straight or a lesbian doesn’t really change anything.

How are you missing the point? Lesbians accessing the same rights as heterosexual women is based on the principle of equality. You then cannot argue that men can not or should not have equality to lesbain and hetero women. Because that's not equal, is it?

I think, once you’ve decided that surrogacy using donated sperm is available to infertile couples, there’s very little reason to deny the same to lesbian couples.

If both members of lesbian couple are infertile then yes they should have access, otherwise no.

Well apart from the couple of posters that have blamed infertile women for world over population. I mean the one child I had thanks to IVF is the problem - the three I would have had if I could have conceived without IVF wouldn't have been because well erm I'm not sure why really.

Nobody has stated or insinuated that this is the fault of women/lesbians.

🤔 Is it normal to blame the person/people ‘being used’ for something, to say it is the person/people’s ‘fault’ for being used?

Or is it normally seen as the users fault?