Do you believe IVF is ok?

[Ididivfama]

I’ve been reading a lot of the surrogacy threads recently (and I know that is a different topic) but I was curious to mumsnet posters ideas of ethics and ivf. You can see from my name that we ended up doing it, but I won’t be horribly offended by different views. I’m more curious.

Obviously it’s ’unnatural’ as a process and there is the issue of what happens to any extra blastocysts (I use the term blastocyst as they are pre-embryo stage and calling them embryos makes people view it differently - at least I did!) Even so, would you count leaving blastocysts to decay as abortion? I never did but I’ve read that view now so I’m curious as to how many people view it like that.

As is pointed out on the surrogacy threads - no one is ‘entitled’ to have a child. Is that the same for us ivf parents?

No issue with IVF at all, but I do sometimes wonder if it's a cost the NHS can really bear.

But then I disagree with myself because then only the rich could avail themselves of IVF.

Short answer. I dunno! <helpful>

Egg donation in the UK is not paid. Women donating are compensated for their time/ travel, but not compensated. The selection process is rigorous (I know because I almost used donor eggs and was shocked at the process donors had to go through). You don’t just turn up at a clinic, hand over eggs and get lots of money. Lots of other countries however, DO pay women for their eggs.

All the donor profiles I read here in the UK were doing it because they had witnessed the despair of other family members unable to conceive. Some people really are just that kind.

The process is the same as women using their own eggs. A lot of testing, injections and retrieval.

I agree with IVF and I think it should be funded more via the nhs ie no restrictions if a woman's partner already has a child. However I think it's unethical to not either use every viable embryo/blastocyst yourself or to donate to another infertile woman.

I have no issue with ivf for couples with fertility issues as long as the embryo's consist of the father's sperm and mother's egg.
I also don't have an issue with surrogacy if a couple use an embryo made from thier sperm/egg for the surrogate to carry, and the surrogate is fully consenting and not vulnerable in any way.

Where it gets complicated for me is using sperm and egg donors, as those children will then grow up not being raised by thier biological parents and might have issues because of that, especially children made from anonymous donations. I think if you are going down the donor route you should at least make sure that your child can get in contact with their biological parents someday, and make sure the donor themselves would be ok with this. People deserve to know where they've come from.

@tomatoontoast

tomatoontoast · Today 14:02

lapsedrdwhoenthusiast · Today 13:43

@Flopsythebunny

I don't have a problem with ivf.
I do have a problem with taxpayers paying for it

What about tax payers paying for hospital treatment from injuries that come from sports such as rugby or skiing, where the patient has chosen to play a dangerous sport?
What about tax payers funding the education of children?
I don't really see how IVF is any different to those?
Well apart from the blazingly obvious difference that school children and rugby players are already alive...

The parents who want the medical invention are already alive, hence the comparison with sportsplayers. IVF is for the parents! It's them being treated on the NHS, not the not-yet-alive person! Did you deliberately misunderstand my comparison?

I have to say I would have done anything to have my daughter. Ethics didn’t come into it. I had ICSI IVF and would again tomorrow, others wouldn’t. It’s a process and a choice. I was not in a position for anything to be saved or frozen, but I wouldn’t care if it was if it meant having my daughter. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

IVF within couples; no problem.

IVF alone; personally I don’t agree with. Children should have two parents.

Both DSIS had IVF after years of trying and now have their own lovely children. That's all that matters really.

Have problem with IVF

No*

Ha ha ha! This post is hilarious. Should I also refuse to have a Caesarian? I mean presumably I’m denying natural selection it’s right to kill off the weak there too? How about anti biotics?

Thank you. Perfectly said.

If someone chooses to be a surrogate, her choice, her body. Being forced is one thing but choosing is another.

I feel there is a qualitative difference between IVF using the genetic material of the two intended parents , and IVF where either of the ‘parents’ ( in apostrophes because they are not going to be parents in the social, familial sense) are not going to have any further involvement with the child, either ( maybe particularly) during the gestation or during the eighteen years until the child becomes an adult.

I think it maybe quite strange to be carrying a child who does not share your genetic material? From a ‘donated’ egg. Whatever nurture has to contribute, the fact is that children do share more than a home with their parents, and that they bear not just physical but often psychological traits with their parents. I suspect that difference may be felt more by the child . That may not be an ethical,problem, but it may well be an emotional one.

There was a poster on MN a while back who was boasting that she had gone to Cyprus and purchased ( her words) an egg for IVF much ‘more cheaply ‘ than in the UK. Did she not wonder even a bit whether this was actually going to be a satisfactory ‘purchase’ ? Of course, all the women providers on these sites are beauties with a PHD…..does no one ever feel ‘disappointed’ if that’s not how their child grows up?

Do men whose female partners have carried and borne an IVF baby conceived with another man’s sperm ever feel resentment and alienation from the child, even at a very very subconscious level? Certainly step children are statistically at greater risk of parental violence.

It’s a topic which bears discussion IMHO, as it becomes more and more prevalent in the affluent world, because discussion is the only way we are going to evolve moral and legal guidelines for what is after all, a crucial life decision.

Surrogacy is a completely different area. I don’t approve of commissioning and selling human beings.

@twnety by your logic if someone needed a heart valve replacement or a kidney transplant would you just leave them as they don't have the natural requirements to stay alive. So it's natural selection that the person dies.

Can someone explain how IVF works as if I’m 16? I really don’t understand it and why people would have a negative opinion on it

I don't think IVF is anywhere near as problematic as surrogacy but it isn't problem free. The ethical issues are different too.

IVF with donated eggs presents more problems than using the Mother's own eggs. Donated sperm less problematic again as there are fewer risks of donation.

I don't think the ethical issues are solely related to the creation of life or medical risks either. I think there are issues around the financing of treatment and the expectations and pressures.

Overall I think we should reframe how we look at fertility and infertility and there should be more emphasis on helping people cope with childlessness.

For complete transparency I am childless. When DH and I decided to try we discussed what we would do if things didn't go to plan, we agreed that we wouldn't go down the route of investigating causes or treating infertility and would accept it as fate. We have stuck to that and seeing the stress, pain, strain and pressure IVF puts on couples I remain of the view that was the right decision. It won't be for everyone but I think it could be right for more people and is worth discussing.

I can understand why people get ivf and have an aunt who conceived via ivf. I am 100% sympathetic and don't want to upset anyone. I am not able to have children myself and am very familiar with the heartbreak that comes with wanting children but not being able to have them.

but my general thoughts on ivf are....

1. so many children are in Foster homes/orphanages - adopting seems like a more ethical choice
2. in terms of the NHS, I feel like while we are not able to provide basic life saving services - providing funding for ivf feels counterintuitive
3. a lot of ivf is done in older patients because we have created a society where parents, especially women, are not sufficiently supported in having children at a younger age. addressing these root causes would reduce the number of patients requiring ivf (which as well as being expensive, is incredibly stressful).

No issues at all with IVF.
My DDs partner is the light of her life and wouldn't have been born without it

I believe that IVF is ethical, @Ididivfama - I think it is a good thing that medical science can help people become parents.

IVF is using your own body to gestate your baby.
Surrogacy is buying another woman's body.
For me that's my line.

I also feel very uneasy about how many IVF companies exploit women at a vulnerable time, knowing they charge a fortune for IVF and then say to women they can have money off if they donate their eggs.
I also find myself very uncomfortable how often there's stories that boil down to "the UK didn't let us buy the baby or human parts we wanted or it was too much hassle so we went to this other country that's less regulated where our cash speaks more".

Not quite the point, I know, but a few years after the final, unsuccessful round of IVF, one of several previous, a friend of a dd who’d given up hope, thought she ‘might as well’ have the very last embryo implanted.
And lo, 9 months later, she has the longed-for baby. 🙂

I see no problem with ivf including leaving unused blastocysts to perish.
Some people don't realise that the majority of fertilised eggs from natural conception don't result in a living baby. They either fail to develop and just die off, fail to implant or are miscarried, often very early.
Zygotes are not as precious to "mother nature" as people like to think.

You take sperm and harvest eggs and put them together outside of the body then implant them into the mother. Methods vary, and if there is an issue with the parents sperm or egg then sometimes donor ones are used (from another man or woman who have donated them).

Egg harvesting can be a bit risky as you over stimulate the ovaries, but it's a relatively safe procedure. The woman usually has to inject hormones to do this.

To me it feels weird (not in an ethical /unethical way, just weird) that the embryo had been outside the body before being born! Others believe that nature/God knows best and you shouldn't force it.

Possibly issues with sperm/egg donation. I couldn't have done that but I don't have ethical issues per se with it.

Although multiple births are statistically more likely. And multiples come with a higher risk of prematurity which comes with health risks.

I’m not siding one way or the other with this argument by the way. We had been told to consider IVF after a long period of infertility, decided against it, and then became pregnant naturally, unexpectedly. I’m not sure where that puts me in the sphere of non-parent/IVF parent/naturally conceiving parent mix that has been discussed earlier in the thread! 😂

I understand what you mean @LolaSmiles, however, the other EU country where DH and I went for our treatment was well organised, humane and efficient whereas we found services here disorganised, bureaucratic and generally rather rubbish - it wasn't about the money for us at all.

The UK "system" really puts patients through a lot of unnecessary worry, judgement and stress ime.