...to ask why the NHS funds IVF?

[moofeatures]

I promise I'm neither an (intentionally) goady fucker, nor Katie Hopkins.

But.

Following on from a recent thread about there being a perception that public money grows on trees, I'd like to ask your stance on the NHS funding IVF.

Now, before I get flamed for my insensitivity, let me explain that I myself was diagnosed with ovarian failure in my 20s. I am still of an age where I'd meet the criteria for NHS IVF funding, which would be my only way to have a biological child. I initially grieved for this as I always assumed I'd be pregnant one day, but also from day 1 of my diagnosis I've felt that artificial reproductive hormone therapy/IUI/IVF falls outside the remit of what the NHS should provide as it serves no medically therapeutic purpose.

The logical response to my argument is: "if the only option for IVF is to privately fund, then you're depriving less affluent people the chance to become parents", which is both true and a shame... but is it the NHS's problem? Really, it's the infertility which took away that choice - and it is a choice, not a right... at least in my opinion.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

There are all sorts of reasons why a couple might use artificial insemination. My DSis and DBIL had to because she suffers from vaginismus and is unable to have full penetrative sex. (This is because of the SA we suffered as children.) Thankfully, they managed it twice without any problems and didn't need medical assistance.

I find it very upsetting that PP want the thread to be removed because they have read opinions they do not like.

It’s more than opinions which PP simply do not like. It’s opinions which are fucking horrific and offensive and wrong.

Some of the posters on here may as well have just said “Hitler got it right” with their opinions on natural selection about why people with infertility shouldn’t be given fertility treatment. If I came on here and suggested we shouldn’t treat people with cystic fibrosis, haemophilia or sickle cell anaemia in order to allow natural selection to take place, most of them to die before reaching reproductive age preventing the genes causing these illnesses being passed on I’d quite rightly be lynched and I’m sure everyone would say that’s unacceptable. But for reasons I don’t understand, some people seem to reserve a special kind of hatred and callousness towards people with infertility.

I don’t think the thread should be pulled, but I do think the people who suggested it should be have suggested it for reasons which go far beyond opinions they just don’t like.

And for what it’s worth, I think the hatred, venom and lack of compassion towards people with infertility demonstrated by several posters on this thread is far more upsetting than anyone asking for the thread to be pulled due to some of the abhorrent opinions people have posted.

I am glad thete is more awareness amongst healthcare professionals now. I was ttc in the 90s. We needed ICSI which although routine now was not available on the NHS then. We were told that perhaps our GP might help with the cost of the drugs, I did ask but was made to feel like shit for even asking. Also when I was trying to set up a support group I asked my GP practice if I could put a small poster on the surgery wall but they refused.

there's a huge difference between treating people with current illnesses they have developed and creating a new life from scratch that needs support

hugitout so are you suggesting people with inherited illnesses should be treated, but are not allowed to reproduce? Because if they pass on their genetic illness they’ll be “creating a new life from scratch that needs support”.

On a very basic level I agree op but I also recognise I take my own fertility for granted, I have had one dc and I can only imagine if I wanted another and if for whatever reason wasn't able I would most likely be devastated, I don't know what I would do in that situation as I'm not faced with it.

If the help is available then people are free to take it, I don't advocate taking it away or any treatment for that matter. No one treatment/person is more worthy than the next.

I bet someone of you saying that you don't agree with IVF treatment on the NHS
had your dcs with no problems.

Earl, it would depend what the problem was and what effect that would have on the intensity / amount and ££ of ivf someone needed, the outcome for a future child, whether the parent is emotionally / physically able to look after and support the child etcetc not really a black and white subject. many biological urges get ignored because we are grown adult humans capable of making sensible life choices

there's a huge difference between treating people with current illnesses they have developed and creating a new life from scratch that needs support

So what about IVF with PGD that's funded on the NHS

A fertile couple who carry a genetic disorder can TTC naturally and have a very high likelihood of producing an affected child, who would be born with a life limiting disease requiring significant NHS care and reduced quality of life. Or they keep getting pregnant and have CVS at 12 weeks to determine if the foetus is affected and have repeated TFMR to prevent a child being born with the disease

Or they have IVF with PGD so that the lab can identify if any embryos are free of the disease, and only transfer one that is unaffected. So a healthy baby is born who doesn't require lifelong care and is free of the disease

The eugenics lot should LOVE that, because rather than having lots of children with Huntingtons Chorea or Haemophilia or Cystic Fibrosis or Tay Sachs or Canavans disease born, who would suffer and die prematurely, the IVF with genetic testing means healthy babies are born without the disease.

But presumably they'd prefer the natural order and let the babies be born and THEN spend NHS money treating them once they're alive and suffering

Or maybe the couples should be sterilised so they can't pass on their defective genes at all?

Or maybe they'll like this form of IVF as it'll conform to their eugenics narrative of breeding out those with defective genes

*EarlGreyT

I completely agree with everything you’re saying about the opinions expressed except but I still think that freedom of speech is important, and that someone’s opinion can’t really be “wrong”. It can be a very unusual view that I (or you) personally find disgusting (as is the case with the examples you have given), but it isn’t right that because the majority disagree it makes it wrong. Or that people can’t express themselves. I’m not agreeing with the things people have said, but I think it’s important to stand by people’s right to say it.

I'm a nurse currently working in emergency medicine. I see day in and day out NHS money being pissed up the wall. Alcoholics coming in weekly with the same social issues, people faking illness so they can post about a cannula on FB for likes. It makes me feel so much better knowing some part of the NHS will just work for people like you and me.

not sure why you keep bringing extreme eugenics into this rather than understanding creating a child with problems is not ideal for anyone involved, not least the child itself.
ivf with Pgd is obviously positive and something I would happily pay for if i had a condition where it was needed. not sure i would demand the nhs pay for it though.

@crispysausagerolls no that isn't true. They obviously have a right to their own opinions, but when you read some of these heartbreaking stories on this thread, it just appears that some posters have had an empathy bypass. Yes, I know it's AIBU, and that's what happens here, but what about some basic human kindness? There are ways of expressing opinions without being insensitive about them.

@bananafish81
You may have realised this already, but what you’ve just written is exactly where I was going with my previous post, but you’ve now said it all for me-thank you. And as usual you’ve said it far more eloquently than I could have!

hugitout10
Because several posters on here have said that infertile people shouldn’t be allowed to have IVF (NHS or otherwise) to allow natural selection and (I paraphrase) to allow the dodgy genes causing them to be infertile to die out. Most people needing fertility treatment who have successful treatment have healthy children with no known genetic illness, but that hasn’t stopped several posters banging on about how people with infertility should not be treated to allow natural selection.

ivf with Pgd is obviously positive and something I would happily pay for if i had a condition where it was needed. not sure i would demand the nhs pay for it though.

In which case some people will have a child anyway without IVF and PGS, pass on their known genetic condition to their children who will need to be treated which will ultimately cost the NHS a lot more money than IVF and PGS ever would have done.

not sure why you keep bringing extreme eugenics into this rather than understanding creating a child with problems is not ideal for anyone involved, not least the child itself.

But no one has managed to point out how IVF is 'creating a child with problems'!!

Comments like the below from woolythoughts have been thrown around but no one has yet been able to point out any evidence for how an IVF baby is 'creating a child with problems'

Now, we allow infertile people to get pregnant conveniently ignoring the possibility that there might be some unknown reason why their genetics have made them infertile and so should not pass their genes on to the next generation.
*
Even in the cases of early cancer being the cause of it. There is obviously something that we do not yet understand that makes that person more susceptible to getting cancer young - and allowing them to have children passes that unknown down.*

Please do enlighten us! I'd love to know the science that NICE and the WHO don't know. Please do share your bounteous knowledge. We'd all love to be educated.

just because we can't control fertile people making mistakes or not considering sensible options etc isn't a good enough argument for not doing what we can with people we do can have an impact on (control doesnt sound right but i hope you get my point).

i think the concern from me (cant speak for other who have said their comments) is that there are some people who have minor issues and a one session if Ivf works and they've paid for it and all is fine with healthy happy family. but there are others who go through years and years of it, multiple miscariages and thousands of pounds spent to force a pregnancy rather than it being accepted that life without kids is no less valid/fun/filled with love and joy. just because you felt you would have liked a baby, unfortunately it clearly isn't something everyone can have or will get and there needs to be limits to the extent this is pursued - especially at other people's costs if this isn't a self funded desire.

leaving the thread now as its going in circles, but i wish you all the best of luck with your ivf journeys and if they aren't successful, the peace to enjoy your lives in an equally if differently fulfilled way.

'Just because you felt you would have liked a baby'

Wow.

I get that not everyone feels the primal need for a baby, but for those that do and can't have one it is horrendous.

'Just' and 'like to have one' don't even come close to how I felt when I thought I'd never be a mother.

@DontMentionTheWar thank you for sharing your experience so eloquently and so movingly. I wish some of the posters on this thread would take time to read your incredibly heartfelt posts with first hand knowledge of the issues being discussed, but as many will come on without RTFT, bleat about the world being over populated and fuck off again, I somehow doubt that

Thank you so much for sharing your story, it's moved me immensely

I know this might be a bit insensitive and putting a value on peoples lives but often these toobecpesive cancer drugs cure cancer they at best extend life by a few months and cost hunderds of thousands of pounds for what equals to less then a extra year so its not curing but just extending your life and sadly that amount of funding just to extend someones life by a couple of months is not a good cost/benifet ratio.

I am sorry for suvgesting we put value on peoples lives but in a finite budget we cannot spend infinte money just to extend ones life a few months (if it cured them thats completely different)

Fucking hell there are some callous bastards posting here

I have so much admiration for those suffering from infertility who've read those comments and replied politely

@DontMentionTheWar. I also found your heartfelt posts very moving and thought provoking.

I do wish people would read posts from posters like you with actual first hand knowledge of the adoption process and think before writing their little gems about how people with infertility should adopt. Unfortunately people either don’t read the thread properly, don’t think or don’t care and just glibly post the usual cliches everyone with infertility has heard time after time and then bugger off again. Even as someone not in the throes of IVF I find some of the posts on here pretty upsetting and difficult to read.

Fucking hell there are some callous bastards posting here

Indeed. Like I said earlier for some reason some people reserve a special venom and hatred for people suffering from infertility. Like the poster of this little gem ”now we allow infertile people to get pregnant”. I mean for fucks sake.