AIBU to ask what the new definition for infertility means?

[RestlessTraveller]

So I'm listening to radio 5 and they are talking about how infertility has been redefined so that single men can now be treated for infertility i.e. helped to have a baby. I think this is great news but I'm not sure how. Will there be an army of surrogates or will he need to have one to start with?

this guidance says that just not having a partner is now a fertility issue

Er, what?

There you go Blue

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/19/single-men-will-get-the-right-to-start-a- family-under-new-defini/

JustHappy that's exactly what they've said. Not having a partner is now officially classed as a fertility problem by the WHO on an equal footing to those who have medical issues.

So they have to be allowed to access free treatment at the same level as couples with medical issues or they are being discriminated against. Couples aren't provided with surrogates by the NHS either so they would be treated equally if expected to source their own.

Are the WHO going to include in this single men who are single partly because they live in countries that abort and murder girl foetuses and babies? So they can get fertility treatment and do the same to the next generation?

I don't agree with someone having equal access to fertility treatment simply because they're single.

I think that access to NHS fertility treatment should solely be for people who can't conceive because of a medical problem. Not people who have no medical problems but who can't try for a baby because they don't have a girlfriend / boyfriend.

Just to be clear (as some in the thread are boggling that this could come from the NHS) this is not coming from the NHS.

The world health organisation is changing their definition of 'infertility' to basically mean anyone who wants a child and cant have one, so gay couples, singles etc.

People are discussing what effect that might hypothetically have on the NHS (who have rules that they only give ivf to infertile people), in the case of it accepting the WHO definition (which seems unlikely) or what legal challenges people might bring against the NHS when they can basically say 'I'm infertile, the WHO says so, so you need to give me treatment too'.

I think it would be great if everyone who wanted a child could have one. I basically agree that gay couples and singles people should have the right to have children. But I'm not sure that I agree that healthy people are 'infertile', it feels like it's trivialising the medical issues. Or maybe we should call them 'situationally infertile' as opposed to 'medically infertile' (with acknowledgement that people could be both).

My feeling is that there's a fundamental difference between an individual who is incapable of making a baby without medical assistance, and an individual who is physically capable of making a baby, but who is in a social position (e.g. single, same sex relationship) that makes having a baby without help difficult.

It's confusing the issues to label both individuals as "infertile".

That would then surely also have to include people in relationships whose partner doesn't want to have a baby while they do?

It sounds to me like whoever is thinking up these theories has no real concept of the pain of infertility..

Thanks to everyone who has helped here,
particularly butterfliesandzebras and billsykkesdog.

I don't see why single people shouldn't be helped to conceive tbh.

That would then surely also have to include people in relationships whose partner doesn't want to have a baby while they do?

Huh, good point. I would think it would have to.

Not sure that's fundamentally any different really to the single people? I'm mean the partner that doesn't want kids can always leave the relationship (which would leave the person being treated for 'infertility' single), or they could stay as a partner but not a parent (much like some couples do if they meet after one of them is already a parent).

no real concept of the pain of infertility..

To be fair, I don't think the pain of not having a desperately wanted child is any worse for people who medically can't than those who can't due to situation. But I do think the challenges are different.

butterflies, this WHO guidance sets an international legal standard which we are forced to abide by, including the NHS. It's not coming from the NHS but it applying to the NHS is not hypothetical.

I think there's probably going to be a big court case coming up..

MrsTP, I think the countries where a lack of girls because of sex selection either won't have a national health service or private providers who adhere to this sort of thing, or they will be the kind of country like China which couldn't give two shits for international standards

It won't be too long before the NHS offers no fertility treatment anyway. My local CCG now offers no infertility treatment, and provision nationwide is less than it was 5 years ago.

To be fair, I don't think the pain of not having a desperately wanted child is any worse for people who medically can't than those who can't due to situation. But I do think the challenges are different.

I don't see why single people shouldn't be helped to conceive tbh.

I don't think either of you really understand the reality of the situation. Single reproductively healthy people have options. Find a boyfriend, have a fling, have a one night stand, ask a friend for sperm, buy some off the web.

If you suffer from medical infertility you will never conceive without medical help.. There is no way you can compare that black abyss of loss of hope with someone deciding one night that the clocks ticking a bit and they really don't fancy waiting around to see if the right man turns up so they want the NHS to furnish them with a baby on demand.

Also factor in that fertility treatment is not the 'get a baby on your lunch hour' sure thing a lot of people assume it is. It's gruelling, invasive and has really unpleasant side effects and can increase risks for mother and child life long for some things. And it doesn't always work.

The national health service is just that. It's there to treat health problems, not pick up the pieces for people who can't start or sustain a relationship for whatever reason and don't fancy putting it about on Tinder until they get lucky.

I can't get worked up about this really. The NHS definitely won't pay for this. We already barely fund treatment for people with actual medical fertility problems.

It does seem like a fucking ridiculous thing for the WHO to spend time on.

Speaking from experience, the guidelines for Nhs funded feetity treatment are so strict that no one would be able to access it unless their infertility was 'proven'

Cheby it may well be the case that the NHS will be made to pay for this because they are legally bound to because they're bound to the WHO guidelines.

But as people have been saying, if that happens the NHS won't pay for it but they'll have to do this by stopping fertility treatment for everybody including those with medical issues. Because they have to treat them equally to fertile people who just happen to be single.

But the fertile single people will still have loads of options to have kids but people with medical infertility will have none unless they're really rich.

user, but this overrules those guidelines and says they can't do that. And it's legally binding.

What about those with secondary infertility either after conceiving naturally first time or those who had IVF and now needing it again ? Currently they are not allowed funding due to having a child

What about couples where for example the man has a child from a previous relationship yet the woman had a medical issue but is still denied funding as her partner has a child ?

I've been through IVF (unsuccessfully) and this new rule seems very very unfair

It will probably still rule them out Willow as no mention is made. I agree with you about couples where one member has a child should be treated free, but I don't think secondary infertility should be treated for free. Sorry, but I think primary infertility and people who won't be parents at all should be the priority.

Yes I agree

But if single fertile people would potentially be treated then I think those who either have a partner with a child or secondary infertility should be also funded and in order of priority should be primary infertility, primary where partner has a child, secondary infertility and then 'infertile by social not medical'

Basically all those with a medical need should come above those who are considered infertile but have no medical diagnosis

It isn't legally binding. I think it's highly unlikely it will be adopted by the NHS.

BillSykesDog I am, I think, mostly in agreement with what you are saying in this thread, so perhaps my last comments weren't clear, and I'm sorry if that came across badly.

When I said I felt the pain of people who couldn't have children due to their situation was as bad as those who couldn't for medical reasons, I was talking about people who really were unable to have children, not those, who as you say 'have options'.

I have a male friend in his 50's. He has never had sex or a relationship (and not through lack of wanting or trying). I've listened to him cry on more than one occasion over the years, because he is so utterly miserable and lonely and desolate that (in his view) he will never have a family, and never have a child of his own. I believe his pain is every bit as real as that of a similar man in a couple who is medically infertile.

Find a boyfriend, have a fling, have a one night stand, ask a friend for sperm, buy some off the web.

None of your options will do anything for my friend. Or for a gay male couple. (I do agree, that single heterosexual women do have more options, sperm is a lot easier to find than a womb...).

But as I said, the challenges are so very different, and I should have emphasised this more.

My point really was that we don't have to play misery top trumps and decide who is worse off, to say that having medical infertility is a completely different set of problems to situational infertility, and that it doesn't seem a good idea to conflate the two.