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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think it's mean when people on here proclaim that gaving children isn't a right?

209 replies

malificent7 · 07/08/2019 06:09

Normally uttered by comfortably off fertile people with about 3 children and aimed sometimes sneeringly at less well off women ..or women with difficult circumstances.
Aibu to think that having children may not be a right but it is a biological imperative for many; like most animals we are designed to reproduce.
Btw...i am very happy with my 1 and only dd so this is not to do with me.

OP posts:
SaveTheTupperware · 07/08/2019 09:19

I don't want to go down the self inflicted route. My aunt was a heavy smoker and needed treatment for cancer which eventually took her life. I'm extremely grateful that this was available to her.

But I think it is a fair argument when people bring up the IVF shouldn't be on the NHS debate. I'm interested to know why people think one is okay but the other isn't?

ShatnersWig · 07/08/2019 09:22

The NHS is there for all of us

No, Thigh, it isn't. If I wanted IVF, I could have it. But I can't have a monthly injection costing 50 p (£6 per year) to prevent further damage to my nervous system and which affects me on a daily basis. I have an increased risk of other problems, including dementia, which will cost the NHS thousands and thousands as I age. So, they could spend £6 on me per year, to save thousands. They won't. I pay my national insurance and my tax but I can't have back £6 per year. But hey, I can have IVF which costs far, far more.

malificent7 · 07/08/2019 09:24

I didn't mean to cause offense to those struggling with infertility; i phrased it insensitively ...i guess what i mean is that it is a right to try and conceive if wanted.
And i totally agree that children are a privaledge. I just dont like the way the phrase has been vandied about to the poor, single parents or the infertile by those who are very lucky.

OP posts:
BarbariansMum · 07/08/2019 09:24

Having children cannot be a "right". No one has the right to sex , nor the right to another person's gametes. In the absence of cloning, that's the end of a right to reproduce.

In terms of infertility, just because somethings not a right doesn't mean it's cant be devastating.

Teddybear45 · 07/08/2019 09:24

This comment was made to me after my successful IVF by a mother of two who has claimed far more in benefits than any single free IVF cycle in her area would ever cost. I was so angry I let her have it with both barrels, saying the NHS is far better off if people who can afford to pay for IVF privately (after a free cycle) reproduce rather than scroungers like her. She has never said anything like this to me again (family so can’t avoid each other unfortunately). The UK government ‘wastes’ a lot of money on a whole lot of things - the free IVF cycle is the least of it’s worries.

ThighThighOfthigh · 07/08/2019 09:29

Shatner i meant should be there for all of us. Your situation makes no economic sense.

LuaDipa · 07/08/2019 09:30

I don’t feel that that belief that children are not a right is or should be offensive to anyone. I have real empathy for anyone struggling to conceive. I believe that as infertility is usually a medical condition, it should be funded on the nhs. But I absolutely believe that children are a privilege not a right, however they are conceived, or however they come to be a part of one’s family.

TapasForTwo · 07/08/2019 09:30

That's so frustrating isn't it ShatnersWig
It does seem that the NHS have their priorities wrong in many cases.

SaveTheTupperware · 07/08/2019 09:31

Lua, it's more when posters comment all over a thread about infertility letting the OP know it isn't a right. Like yes, we already know! Hearing it 50 times from various people doesn't make it any easier to experience though.

LuaDipa · 07/08/2019 09:32

*the belief obviously!

AgentJohnson · 07/08/2019 09:34

Meanwhile back in the real world, there isn’t an infinite amount of money for the NHS and the burden on it grows by the day. It simply wasn’t designed for people living as long as they do or for the types of medical advancements being made.

Tough choices have to be made and it is naive to think otherwise.

Ibiza2015 · 07/08/2019 09:36

It is actually probably a right. The Human Rights Act guarantees right to a family life. I always wonder why nobody has ever used that to take an NHS Trust to court because it doesn’t offer the minimum NICE guidelines for treatment.

There’s been some interesting scholarship on this subject in recent years.

mydogisthebest · 07/08/2019 09:38

I don't think it is right to have children. No one needs to have children, you have children because you want to.

Also some people really should not have any but do.

I don't think IVF should be free on the NHS either

Teddybear45 · 07/08/2019 09:40

@ShatnersWig - how much is that drug privately? I had to pay £8 a time for my thyroid medication for three years because my IVF clinic diagnosed my severe hypothyroidism (while my GP dismissed the result as ‘normal’). I also has to pay £5 per injection for blood thinners during pregnancy for a clotting disorder the NHS doesn’t treat. This is all on top of the extra IVF cycles I needed after my free one (I have PCOS so 1 cycle would never be enough). My IVF clinic diagnosed all of this, the NHS wasn’t interested until I got pregnant.

CleopatrasMum · 07/08/2019 09:41

I agree OP. I have spent enough time on here on the infertility and donor conception boards to know that there is always someone ready to remind everyone that having children isn't a right as if we needed their special insight! However, there is a special place in hell for the ones who come on saying "just adopt instead" like you can pop in for a child on your way home from work. If adoption was that easy why leave it to the infertile people? Everyone should do it.

Almost invariably, when questioned, it turns out that those people have had children naturally, but that doesn't stop them advocating the restriction of options available to those who aren't so lucky.

(And I am not talking about discussion of the ethical issues around surrogacy and donor conception by the way. Those discussions are important for the wellbeing of women and society at large)

anothernotherone · 07/08/2019 09:43

I think there are a few parts to this apparently but not really naive question.

The simpkest is empathy - obviously it's "mean" to deliberately hurt the feelings of people struggling with infertility or any other ussue. That just means being thoughtful about what you say and how you say it. People probe to being hurt by the words of strangers probably should stay away from forums where strangers have robust discussions though, as if nobody was ever allowed to discuss anything which might upset someone who might read it the world would be a worse place, asserious ethical issues would never be examined.

On a more practical level the person who said it's a parallel to sex as a right has an excellent point, as well as the person who made the case law clear (right to maintain family relationships not to be awarded help to create new life).

I think surrogacy brings the "right to have a baby" issue into sharp focus, just as prostitution does the "right to sex" issue. Both involve paying a poorer woman to give up her bodily autonomy for a time, and both subject the woman to risk, and both might appear to be freely entered into but when you look behind the scenes very often aren't, and often have unexpected negative reprocussions.

Surrogacy has massive ethical problems because it it puts the rights of adults before the baby, which is never the case under any other law.

Deliberately choosing to create a baby to be removed from it's mother at birth puts the wants of adults before the needs of children. Nobody would breed a kitten or puppy intending to remove it from it's mother before weaning, yet people actively set out to do this when they create a surrogate pregnancy. It is never optimal to remove a newborn from it's mother (in some child protection cases it's the least worst option, given the already existing pregnancy and high risk to the baby, but clearly least worst isn't optimal!)

IVF with donor eggs or sperm also creates some potential issues for the baby, and isn't a clear cut "good" but less obviously irresponsible than planning to create a baby to be removed from it's mother at birth and denied the fourth trimester and any chance of breastfeeding etc.

Funding is another issue but imo the least important - it's the impact on the baby and child they become, and then the impact on the women used as tools (incubators, egg production machines) that are the real issue.

I don't see a major ethical issue with IVF using the parents own eggs, sperm and womb in the same way.

I think, as with sex, the right is a passive not an active one. Nobody has a right to stop anyone doing anything with their body with another fully enthusiastic consenting adult partner and nobody has a right to force anyone else to be sterilised, use birth control or abort a baby. However nobody has a"right" to state or public assistance in procuring sex or babies either.

jennymanara · 07/08/2019 09:43

Right to a family life means that the state should not stop you being able to have a life with your family. So for example if a Government said that asylum seekers had to live separately from their children, that human right would apply.

zafferana · 07/08/2019 09:43

The right to family life doesn't mean that everyone has the right to reproduce @Ibiza2015! Reproduction is down to biology and has always been random. Nowadays there are medical interventions that allow many infertile people to become parents, but if reproduction itself was a right then men could take women to court for aborting foetuses they didn't want to carry.

It's an insensitive comment to make, for sure, but it's factually correct. No one has the right to become a parent - it is a privilege, but it's also an utterly random biological event. It's heartbreaking to see horrible, abusive, neglectful people having DC with ease, while people who'd make great parents struggle, but that's life. It's cruel and random and often not fair at all.

anothernotherone · 07/08/2019 09:44
  • simplest, prone and other typos, sorry!
echt · 07/08/2019 09:48

Lua, it's more when posters comment all over a thread about infertility letting the OP know it isn't a right. Like yes, we already know! Hearing it 50 times from various people doesn't make it any easier to experience though

Doesn't change it from being a fact. Having a child is not a right. Don't post on AIBU if you don't want PPs to state the fucking obvious.

If the OP wanted a different response, they needed to think about about the title of their thread.

Teddybear45 · 07/08/2019 09:56

@anothernotherone - newborn babies get removed from their mums in a lot of situations. In surrogacy at least the women involved are paid and taken care of emotionally (all IVF clinics in the UK require every party involved in a surrogate birth to go through counselling beforehand). What about drug addicts, victims of DV, or mentally disabled women who have their babies taken at birth and adopted out (usually not to older, more financially stable, infertile couples because you can’t have a baby after a certain age)? Do you consicer the problems associated with letting these women (also poor) give birth the same as surrogates and if not then you probably are discriminating against the infertile.

SaveTheTupperware · 07/08/2019 09:58

If the OP wanted a different response, they needed to think about about the title of their thread

Well I thought it was 'fucking obvious' I wasn't talking about this thread...

I'm talking about when an OP posts about how much their struggling with infertility and lots of posters pipe up with the 'its not a right' comments. How is that helpful in anyway? Quite clearly those OPs are looking for support not 'facts'.

But hey, no worries if you think it's okay to do that. Personally I think it makes you a twat but.

Teddybear45 · 07/08/2019 09:59

@Ibiza2015 - people did take various NHS trusts to court, which is why the maximum age of the free IVF cycle was moved to 40 in a lot of areas. In mine it was previously 34 because of the risk of certain conditions the same trusts would have treated quite happily if the woman had conceived ‘naturally’.

HavelockVetinari · 07/08/2019 10:00

I very, very much doubt that anyone suggesting IVF not be provided at all on the NHS has actually gone through it.

I don't believe that having children is a right, but I do know first-hand how devastating infertility is. It's really hard to describe to someone who's never struggled with it. We had one very shit IVF cycle on the NHS, and have paid over £30,000 for the subsequent 6 cycles. We are very fortunate that we are relatively well off so can afford to keep going (we have one DS but would like another DC). I can't imagine having to stop due to finances, or being childless because we couldn't afford another cycle. It would have destroyed me, I don't think I would have got over it. Sad

I think that if the NHS is treating smokers' lung cancer, fixing sporting injuries, and supplying the huge amount of healthcare the average obese person will need over their lifetime, then 3 cycles of IVF isn't much to ask. ACL surgery costs about £5k. A round of NHS IVF is about £3k. Neither are necessary, but they dramatically improve the recipient's quality of life, which is the case for most of the services the NHS provides. Why is fertility and different?

I do, however, disagree with commercial surrogacy - women's bodies should NEVER be for sale.

Teddybear45 · 07/08/2019 10:04

@echt - you’re right, having kids is not a right. But as a healthy, high tax payer, whose first experience of using the NHS (other than as a child myself) was my free IVF cycle in my mid-thirties, I probably have a greater right to have a child using NHS services than someone who isn’t all these things. Perhaps by your logic people on benefits or with certain health conditions should be sterilized too!!

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