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?

I had IVF once - lucky to have 2 kids, we paid ourselves, the the NHS was generous enough to pay for our drugs - people always choose to point the finger at others - natural versus unnatural? I think it raises the question about modern medicine in general - anyone remember Logan's Run - you were terminated at the age of 30?

The first thing that sprang to mind that if you are going to say that about ivf then it should also apply to any life prolonging medical treatment. I see that others have thought the same.

We have one ivf child between us, so our next generation is half the size of the current generation. It's families with more than two children that are leading to population growth.

The ops friend is 46, it's late to leave it off or not, im 41 I already know I'm not having any kids.

I believe there's been about 8 million IVF babies in the last 40 years so about 200,000 per year on average. The world population has been increasing by about 60 million people per year on average since around the 1950's (that's a rough estimate based on a quick Google search). I don't think IVF is making a significant impact on the population increase.

Yes I was thinking of Logan's Run as well!

The way I see it, infertility is a collection of medical conditions alleviated, sometimes, by medicine. It is also a profoundly upsetting and difficult phenomenon to find oneself in the midst of. It takes a special kind of arsehole to tell the lucky few who find a way out of it that their children shouldn't have been born.

I think people like this have a very simplistic and ill informed view of climate change vs population control. It would be far better for the environment that someone has, say, 2 ivf babies and raises them to be climate aware than people who have naturally conceived 2 babies that are ignorant to climate change. Simply cutting down on people being born would not solve the issue - the population would age as well as decrease which wouldn’t be good either - the best solution is that the people who actually are alive and live on the planet - regardless of whether conceived naturally or not - simply consume less
Having said that, I am a bit when people start thinking about conceiving number 4 onwards...

The real issue is the idiot families who have four plus children and can’t support them due to drug, alcohol and other abuse issues. I’d happily fund ivf for couples who deserve to have kids and I’d rather the government focus on stopping idiots getting pregnant again and again.

What a nasty thing to say. I had twins through ivf and several of my friends went though several rounds of ivf and pure hell to even get one child.

Does your friend have children?

Then all the drug addicted mothers on double figured kids that the state takes the minute it's born need to be sterilised too.

Oh and while we're at it let's hop a China, one child per family. No ifs, no buts.

Your friend is a dick. As someone facing IVF he is a dick.

It's a really difficult one. Ethically I tend to agree - the population is growing, people are living longer, etc. I haven't had infertility so I haven't experienced the pain unwillingly childless people suffer.

But I certainly would have the tact not to express such a view loudly in public!

This is a ridiculous view.
Logically following this everyone should have one dc and then be sterilized.
Or maybe if you have a second dc they should be forced to hand dc to a childless couple?

I’ve got dark green friends who are pretty much against breeding full stop, certainly in the West. I’m sure that they’d also say that spending additional money on creating new babies is madness in an overpopulated world but it’s never come up because they’re too busy disapproving of natural conception and everything that goes with it.

(They’re lovely in some ways but challenging in others)

I do think people ought to limit the size of their families due to environmental issues. I would never say that to anyone with (or considering) a large family though. But I don’t think that burden needs to fall on the infertile though, I think it’s for everyone. I have no issue with assisted conception.

(One child via privately funded IVF. Won’t try for another for various reasons, one of which is environmental concerns).

I have one child who was an IVF baby and I think sticking at one is the most environmentally friendly thing I have done in my life.
A one or two child rule for all would be fairer and less heartbreaking for infertile couples surely?

A punch in the face can help people see sense

What a ridiculous view to have. Cancer (or any disease for that matter, including those self inflicted such as obesity) could be a natural way to control the population, does that mean we should let people die untreated? FWIW we have an IVF child and my husband has had cancer twice... I like to think our little family deserve to be here.

Why is having children bad for the environment? Can someone explain it to me, I've read it on so many threads here that is worse than animal agriculture for the environment, I looked it up and it's true but I don't know why.
Please forgive my stupidity here but if I have a child and replace myself, how is that bad? Is it because people are living longer? I was reading on the other thread the woman who had her children and was now campaigning to get people to stop flying.

So then I considered that the environmentally friendly people, if they don't have children, that's the end of the line and all the other non environmentally friendly people are having 3 or 4 non environmentally friendly babies so the world will be full of selfish people eventually.

Well I'm a pretty environmentally conscious person and I think that's a very nasty thing to say.

I do think people should Consider the environmental impact of having kids.
I have 2 btw, yes some would say selfish but on these grounds ruled out number 3. But would not consider a difference between someone who had them naturally and someone who got assistance to conceive.

Nor would my dh and Some people would call him a real envirobore!

Should the extreme environmentalist euthanize themselves for the environment?

There are several problems with the “replace yourself” theory 3lucky.

A) because of a population boom in earlier decades there’s a very large number of women at or approaching reproductive age worldwide, many more than the number of old people - so if they all have two children each then that will be far more new people than the number of people dying. If every woman continues to have two children then eventually the population will flatten out but not for decades.
B) carbon emissions are too high to be sustainable even as it is
C) individual consumption in many developing nations (eg meat eating, car driving) is rapidly increasing towards western levels so unless something drastic happens even a static population will consume far more in twenty years time.

It’s the wrong way to solve a population problem

If they wanted to control population growth it would be to stop who wanted children having more than 2.

That would be fairer than there being some families with 4,5 or 6 children and some who desperately wanted to be mothers not being allowed to pay privately for IVF

It's a new twist on 'you shouldn't have ivf because so many children need adoption.'

Having ivf does not change the morality of having children. We should all consider if we are suited for adoption and we should all consider our impact on the environment.

Just because I have a health condition which means I couldn't get pregnant naturally doesn't mean I have to be a better person than anyone else.

Environmental and population issues apply equally to everyone though. So why unfairly penalise people who have a medical issue?

I'm not being goady here ita a genuine question- does only having one child or no children really help the environment that much? Surely how you act with that child eg what you buy it and feed it and how many car journeys has much more of an impact?

I don't think IVF should be available on the NHS but wouldn't ban it due to environmental reasons.

Far better to have a child cap if we are worried about the number of children people have.

It was a very insensitive remark, she could have been in the company of someone who is having difficulty in conceiving.