to think a biological child is not a right

[Aribura]

and the NHS should not fund IVF in favour of vital medications for already existing people e.g. cancer drugs being funded?

I'm feeling masochistic this evening and am looking forward to munching on some biscuits and getting my ass handed to me.

So the infertile should be denied medical treatment and spend the rest of their lives subsidising the fertile via the child benefit system, SMP (refunded to employers via HMRC), various parental leave entitlements, Govt sponsored children's Centre's and facilities. You never see childless people setting up threads to whinge about that. Perhaps if they were given some compensation the cost of accessing private care would be cheaper.

We have three children through infertility treatment. None of it was funded. Being unable to conceive was the single most painful thing I have endured and I've given birth three times and had serious injuries besides.

I think its a horrible subject to start a thread on just for entertainment.

BUT, i think that IVF should be funded for people. For people that want but cannot have children it is devastating. Yes, money should be spent on cancer drugs etc, but peoples overall health and wellbeing should be taken into consideration too. I would love to have kids, i can, be we cant as my OH had the snip during his first marriage. Would him having a reversal count as unneccessary? Im sure in your mind it would. We are not going to have kids btw, it is something we decided against for various reasons that i wont go into.

I also work in the NHS and an obscene amount of money is wasted on management ( think hotel stays in the city in which they live ,helicopter rides , all expenses paid trips to Australia ,etc etc ).

Many people who have IVF on the NHS share their eggs so that in turn they can help somebody else to conceive...

Where do you draw the line on this?
Do we stop giving liver replacements to alcoholics ?

Do we deny heavy smokers treatment for lung cancer ?

Do we deny the morbidly obese heart operations ?

Should we just let iv drug users die from pneumonia rather than treat them for it ?

How about gender reassignment?

Where do you draw the line with this attitude ?

The reality is the NHS does not fund everything. Roughly I see 5 categories of priority.

1. Life threatening medical conditions with proven effective treatments
2. Conditions where if left untreated can cause life threatening complications or serious disability to develop e.g. bad chest infections
3. Conditions that affect everyday functioning if not treated e.g. hip replacements
4. Conditions that affect everyday quality of life e.g. chronic pain
5. Conditions that cause personal unhappiness e.g. infertility, impotence

Lots of conditions already don't get the money spent on them to treat them effectively e.g. the treatment of chronic pain is variable. And the NHS does prioritise treatments already. In many areas the NHS either does not fund IVF or very few treatments. So OP lots of people do agree with you.

This doesn't mean that infertility doesn't cause great unhappiness and despair. But unless people are prepared to fund higher taxes, which I am, then hard choices have to be and are made.

I think it's part of a cycle of medical development. Pre the mid to late 60s there were lots of babies for adoption and almost everyone knew someone who had adopted a baby. Remember when teenage girls had their babies wrenched from them in maternity homes specialising in just that. Then the pill was invented and then abortion was legalised and suddenly there were no more babies available for adoption or not the lovely month old ones that everyone wanted anyway. So then IVF was invented to fill the need (a surgeon once told me that Patrick Steptoe was incredibly ambitious but not a fantastically skilled surgeon so had to focus on something different to make his name - I don't know if it was true).

Actually, what I'd like to see some more money spent on is the education of girls and very young women about contraception and the consequences of early sex and early abortion and its effects long term on self esteem and future decision making. That would save the NHS and society a huge amount of both money and pain.

Nannyplum - The NHS already draws the line on lots of treatments and types of patients. Rationing happens all the time. If you work in the NHS I am surprised you are not aware of this

Or am I being dense Nannyplum and you were being ironic?

a biological child is not a right

I do agree with this. I also do agree that the NHS shouldn't fund IVF, which in my mind isn't the same as not treating the causes of infertility. That's taking the emotional side out of the equation entirely. Taking the example of ingrowing toenails and bunions further down the thread, yes you treat the problem but you don't give them a fancy pedicure and a new pair of shoes as well. (not that a baby is like a pair of shoes, I'm simply talking about going further than treating the medical condition).

However, there is an emotional side and it is huge which makes it a very difficult thing to pass comment on. If the NHS thinks they can afford to do it and this is how they want to allocate their money, I assume they have done their research.

I've just deleted the huge post I just wrote, on the grounds that this is a crass and hurtful thread to have started and I'm going to hide it instead.

Totally disagree with the OP.
Might as well say 'being healthy isn't a right'.

Well I don't think the NHS should fund any treatment for people who have brought conditions on themselves through obesity,drink,lack of exercise,smoking and drugs.

Thankfully those in charge are more balanced than both of us.

Infertility can cause dreadful depression for both parties which can cost the NHS a lot of money.Pregnancy is good for a lot of women as it can reduce chances of ovarian cancer,it can also help treat some medical conditions eg endo,PCOS which cost the NHS a lot of money.

I have 2 children from IVF which I payed for myself.Sadly a colleague on a fraction of my salary had to endure seeing me trot off for treatment which she could never afford.As far as I know she's still childless.I don't think only the rich should have access to fertility treatment. Infertility is only going to grow and I think it'll be a cause for concern if only the rich have access to treatment and therefore children.

We should be looking at reducing costs(it doesn't need to be so expensive) and educating women/men on fertility.

Yes, how completely crass to start this thread. Anyway fwiw, I have just been tending my beautiful ivf 1yo. Yes, we were funded. She is so wanted, loved and has a caring stable home.
I don't feel guilty, I have paid taxes for many years.
The NHS funds lots of things that are not life-or-death. It also cares for people who habitually destroy their health through smoking, drinking, over-eating and taking various drugs.
Like most things, it's not simple.
In many areas ivf is only available to women between 39 and 40 for 1 cycle as funding is tight.
Anyhow, the cuts are only essential because the government is failing to collect taxes from, and is subsidising the super rich... but that's a whole other thread.

I agree with most of what is said on here but just would like to correct something that bagofholly said
"no one dies of arthritis" actually rheumatoid arthritis reduces life expectancy on average by 10 yrs and uncontrolled RA can increase your mortality rate by 3 times compared with the rest of the population as well as making you more susceptible to cancer, heart and lung problems (yeah I know if off track for the conversation but it's a common misconception that arthritis is just a bit of ongoing pain rather than a serious disease with severe consequences for some )

It's always people who have children who say this, no strike that - people who have never struggled to have children, who have never been through the soul destroying all consuming grief that is infertility.

Hope you slept well last night op, unlike the thousands of women who were up all night after suffering their multiple ivf cycle loss, their multiple miscarriage, their period yet a-fucking-again after another month of false hope. Tell them that if they can't afford another go then they can fuck off.

That's all I can manage to say here and now I'm hiding this thread.

I am someone currently undergoing fertility treatment.

I agree that it isn't a "right" to have a biological child. How on earth could that right be enforced - some people's bodies just won't do it.

However, I don't think access to cancer treatment is a "right" either. Life naturally ends in death, and, very very sadly, plenty of people die of things other than sheer old age.

Infertility and cancer are BOTH naturally occurring and both heartbreaking. We are exceptionally lucky to live in a country which does its best to address cancer/infertility and many other medical conditions, picking its way through a horrible minefield of prioritisation to do so.

If the NHS funded IVF like the Netherlands do, it would be a lot cheaper. The only problem with IVF is letting providers introduce a serious profit motive.

I'm not going to answer the OP, as I can't really be bothered. The same old shit trotted out time after time. I guess you couldn't think of anything more interesting to post in the early hours OP!

To those who are ttc with no success, we had a positive outcome after 8 years and numerous IVF cycles. Our second son was conceived with no assistance which was a wonderful surprise, although we were fully prepared to go down the IVF route again if need be.

To those who are struggling, I can really appreciate how devastating the process is, how it can dominate your whole life. It's easy to look back after success with rose tinted glasses, but no I haven't forgotten the agony of the whole thing.

Commenting on assisted conception and the costs thereof is almost a national sport atm. Lots of people commenting on something they know very little about imo.

until you have suffered infertility you can have no idea of its devastating effect on people's lives. It quite literally leaves you empty. Empty of hope, unable to enjoy life because all around you people are having babies, children growing up. I'm in the middle of an ivf cycle at the moment, and this morning I have to go to church and greet a dear friend who had her baby last sunday. I will hold this child and kiss its blessed little head and congratulate my friend while all the time I'm dead inside and I can't allow myself to feel anything because if I did I would be screaming it's not fair it's not fair. It's not a minor inconvenience, something that you can just put aside and not think about. It affects me all day every day. But hey, no one sees the suffering so I suppose that's ok?

Boffin isn't Lord Winston calling for correct pricing now?

I remember when I had my treatment turning up at our private hospital seeing the most uber expensive cars I'd ever seen in one place in the staff car park.I rem dp saying "there sits the profits from our cheque book stubs".

This was years ago and I also rem thinking seriously how much does it cost the clinic to extract a few eggs,mix them in a dish then shove them back in.

Clearly others in the know are raising the same questions.

Firstly, what a fucking awful thing to do... Drag out people's worst nightmares for your own entertainment. You should be ashamed. But since you have.

• it is pretty much ALWAYS people who can pop children out like peas that say having a child is not a right. Until you have experienced the pain of childlessness/ infertility you have NO idea
• you're probably one of those people who say why not 'just' adopt like it's that fucking straight forward
• why not try and mop up all the funding wastage in the NHS first before getting rid of fertility treatment (which is already incredibly difficult to access and a very lengthy process - there are lots of hoops to jump through, it's not just a case of tipping up and complaining that it's taken you a couple of months longer than expected).

Finally, I had cervical cancer at 26 which CAUSED my infertility. The treatment I had made it difficult for me to conceive naturally. I am grateful that I didn't have someone like you sat in front of me telling me that I wouldn't get the treatment I needed to enable me an opportunity to have a family. Thankfully my DH and I could afford to pay and jump the waiting list - which we did. DS is now 1 and I am pg with no 2 - naturally.

And IMO, having had both cancer and infertility, I actually found the infertility the hardest to deal with. I have no doubt that if I had not at least had a chance to conceive via IVF that I would have continued to cost the NHS for depression for the remainder of my life.

rockpool a great deal of diseases these days are lifestyle diseases.
The recommendations are 30 mins exercises every day , 5 fruit/ veg a day , no smoking, adherence to the recommended alcohol units , etc etc. A bmi of no more than 23 ...
You would be denying a lot of tax payers treatment based on your opinion ..

eatsleaves there are some restrictions but the NHS still funds physical treatment for alcohol misuse , it still provides emergency treatment for patients with heart conditions who are smokers , it provides physical healthcare for those who use illicit drugs , it spends a lot of money on the morbidly obese.

What I do object to is some areas of the country only funding 1 cycle of IVF ... IMO that is a waste of money. It should be 3 at least .

I take it you've never cried yourself to sleep because your period started, op.

Now do fuck off.

Another one lining up to tell you you're a smug pea-shelling blink and you're pregnant insensitive hurtful twat.
My husband was born with a vasectomy. Not his fault, not mine. Years of heartbreak, weeping and isolation as everyone around us started beautiful little families were finally drawn to a close when our first round of (funded) IVF bore fruition.
I agree with a previous poster who states that infertility is truly the most painful thing I have ever experienced.
I hope the cold light of day allows you to see that this was a really inappropriate thread to have started. But I'm pleased you're getting some sort of vicarious pleasure out of our collective pain.