IVF and population control due to environmental concerns

[Stripyseagulls]

This is a new one on me. I was out with a group of people last night - I have kids that I was extremely lucky to conceive without IVF. One of the group members was very vocal about IVF and the morality of it. That if you are infertile, because of the environmental & population issues we are facing, IVF should no longer be an option. That infertility is population control in its purest sense.

Aibu to think this is a new view? I found it quite an extreme view and having a friend in her mid 40s going through IVF and the pain of infertility, it’s not something I have ever thought about.

Aibu to think it’s an extreme view? I don’t share it at all but wondered if anyone had come a cross it before?

Correct me if I'm wrong but IVF families don't tend to be very big, do they make a lot of difference to the overall global population?

It's not a new view and I have come across it before. Only ever with people that have had children of their own without assistance.

It's a fairly common belief that IVF shouldn't be done, or shouldn't be publicly funded, though not always because of population concerns.

What an absolute wanker that person is

@Bambamber yes I think that’s definitely the case. Altho some of the people last nt had also chosen to be child free for the same reason

Do they also think banning IVF will mean all the difficult to place children will be adopted?

@AnAC12UCOinanOCG I have literally never come across it before hence why I found it so shocking

I think I've come up with a new term. Envirobores. . .

It’s my view as well, sorry. Not that I go voicing it often and you don’t know me here. I’m childfree myself.

Heard my Dad say it but a) he’s in his 70s b) he had a really dysfunctional upbringing with crap birth parents which may have coloured his view and c) my Mum always says to him when he has voiced this “you might feel differently if we had struggled to have kids”.

I wouldn’t say you ABU but, having had numerous attempts at various forms of assisted conception (which all failed), I have come to acceptance that it’s not meant to be and that a certain proportion of the population will always be infertile for natural population control.

I don’t disagree with assisted conception techniques - I have used many of them - but we are now stopping all procedures and this is one of our reasons. That and the fact that I’m now 45.

So I can definitely see where they are coming from. And I say that as someone who is childless not by choice.

How did they reason out people having more than one child? Surely that makes more of an impact that the couples that conceive through IVF?

I’m not going to have any children so your friend having IVF (who will hopefully, successfully, have a baby from it) and my decision will cancel each other out so the muppet you was talking to can stop worrying 🙄

Agree with PP who said IVF families are small - usually one or two children and the other PP who said the people who are usually most vocal about this are people who have had children with no intervention and don’t understand the pain of infertility.

Maybe people could worry more about their own choices and how they impact the environment.

Everybody is entitled to their opinion but this is a spectacularly unkind thing to say to people who have struggled with infertility.

Also if I had the magic power of allocating babies I'd rather give one to the family who really desperarely wants it, rather than for instance people who have one by accident because they didn't take proper precautions !

What an awful thing to say. To be honest, having had successful fertility treatment myself, I tend to roll my eyes when people with naturally conceived children make statements about IVF.

Also, surely you could hold similar views about modern medicine generally?

It’s a definite ethical argument to be had.
Just as there’s an ethical argument to be had about keeping people alive for longer / allowing them to live with illnesses that would have killed them / finding new cures.

If the planet can not sustain more and more people then is a cure for cancer really helpful to us as a species? (For example).

Also, surely you could hold similar views about modern medicine generally?

Of course you could. Anything life saving or prolonging is having an impact on population levels. Do they decline medical intervention when sick or injured?

I guess its easy to have that view until your the person whos infertile. God hope that person doesnt have to go through that, they will eat their words

Dickhead.

IVF success rates are low. Almost everyone I know that’s had IVF has had at least 1 miscarriage via IVF before a successful pregnancy.

They often only have 1 child too.

It's an emotive subject and it upsets people. Especially if the writer cant properly explain themselves.

I watched a documentary on evolution and one of the comments made was, due to medical advances human have ceased to naturally evolve. Discussing it, I was accused of 'promoting eugenics' , I hadn't actually offered an opinion, it was more of a 'did you see that docu last night' ….. I'd make the same point about over breeding dogs - they no longer evolve naturally and many breeds have congenital disorders eg pugs cannot breath properly.

There's always a counter argument to everything, I suppose. Wold your friend who objected to IVF, also object to blood transfusions, organ donation and vaccination?

I don’t agree from an environmental point of view.

I do think that the post code lottery surrounding funding should be removed, all couples who meet criteria should receive one funded attempt on the NHS but then no more unless they go private.

I sorry of agree to a point, you say you have a friend who is in 40s well as time goes on you become less fertile. Rightly or wrongly that's biology.

There is right and wrong ways of looking at it but in over populated world the birthrate should come down, anyone who talks about environment but has multiple kids is a hypocrite.

Also, surely you could hold similar views about modern medicine generally

Yes, though I can see the difference in being against intervention that keeps an existing person alive, and being against intervention that creates new people. I think you can be against IVF and for modern medicine without being a hypocrite.