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

[malificent7]

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.

Teddybear45 I refered to that in the post you are answering! As I said, sometimes it's the "least worst" outcome where a pregnancy already exists, because it is completely unethical to force a termination. It is utterly unethical to deliberately set out with premeditation to create a baby defined from before a medically created conception to be removed from it's mother at birth.

Deliberately setting out to artificially create a newborn who you plan from before sperm meets egg to remove because adults want a baby, is putting the wants of adults before the best interests of a baby.

Removing an already existing baby from it's mother at birth because she poses a real and immediate risk to the baby and has potentially already harmed it in utero is the least worst option for the baby in bad circumstances. In this case the baby's interests come before all the adults.

If you can't see the difference I suspect that is an active choice to be deliberately obtuse.

Having grown up with people in my family who are unable to have children, I was always aware that I might not be able to have children myself. I certainly never thought that I had a right to have them

*destined not defined

That would depend on the context in which the question was asked. It is most unreasonable if posed, as it most frequently is, in relation to infertile couples who are trying desperately to have children. It's even more unreasonable when raised in the context of IVF, its costs, ethics, and 'distribution policy.

I would imagine a fertile couple would be the first to be shocked were the question asked of them 'why didn't you just adopt?' Perhaps the lottery of biological capability confers the 'right' upon them, and to hell with everyone else.

As far as people like this are concerned - and they exist and are out there - having a family life (fundamental human right) is not a 'right' as long as it's a privilege of which they can take full advantage.

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.

Yeah, let’s have a separate express lane for all those higher rate ‘more deserving’ taxpayers.

Having children is not a "Right".
IMO having children is a natural desire for many people and that the desire to have children can be all consuming and desperate.
Children have a right to have love, security, food, education, safety etc . Children are the ones with rights.

I'm an adoptive parent BTW. I was unable to have biological children and it was total HELL so I have enormous sympathy for those suffering from infertility. It is absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I hope to never experience that level of pain again in my life.

But I stand by my statement that having children is not a"Right".

Teddybear45 I can get them privately at £20 per time. I know the same injection costs the NHS 50 p to obtain. So, £240 per year privately or £6 on the NHS. Despite having, in effect, paid for it via my national insurance, I can't have it. I'd happily voluntarily give the NHS £6 a year to cover it if necessary, but that's not an option, I have to to fund it totally myself. It's bullshit when you see what the NHS funds, not just from an economic point of view in terms of what I will cost them as I age (and it's not just me, there are hundreds of thousands of us), but because of what they do fund that does not affect people from carrying out a normal life on a daily basis.

Oh Teddy you poor healthy higher rate tax payer. You're right, you deserve special treatment! Did you really intend to write that, or did your secret thoughts spill over and escape down your better class of healthy higher rate tax paying typing digit!

I believe that we should support people having children and I don't have a problem with one round of IVF on the NHS.

That said, saying it's a right because people want it really badly just isn't logical. People want loads of things, doesn't mean it is their right to have them. Some people are unlucky and we must have empathy for them, but it's not a right. The notion that you should be able to choose the exact number of kids you 'want' is a very recent and privileged notion that most women throughout history have never entertained.

@anothernotherone - you really don’t understand how surrogacy works in the UK. Of course you would find it unethical, because you (and your family) have probably never needed it and so you don’t have the knowledge or compassion to consider the facts. We don’t have commercial surrogacy in this country and the vast majority of surrogates are offered regular contact with the baby & IVF centres here encourage this. In fact it was one of the reasons why many British people who require surrogacy prefer countries that offer commercial surrogacy instead.

Surrogacy is often far more ethical than young women being encouraged to donate eggs / sperm for free IVF (as happens in a lot of IVF centres), or newborns being taken from mums at the hospital bed because of something another family member has done (and not being offered an opportunity to get them back). It’s also more ethical than providing aggressive resusistation treatment to extremely premature babies who won’t survive but funnily enough the debate never really goes that far. It always stops at the ‘easy’ target - infertile couples.

@anothernotherone - I was providing a counter argument against the ‘right to reproduce’ one. By that logic rich, healthy people would have a greater right to a baby and NHS services like IVF than poorer unhealthy people as they pay more into the system (and use less). There are two sides to every argument. If someone is going to tell me that I have less right to a child just because I’m infertile then of course I have the right to remind them that there are a lot of different lenses to use with the ‘right to a child’ argument.

@AgentJohnson - happens in all other countries. Only the rich can access IVF. The UK and parts of Europe are the only places on Earth where poorer infertile couples get a look in. Instead of celebrating that a lot of dickheads on this thread are arguing to remove it entirely from the NHS which would make it even more expensive: doesn’t affect me directly as I can afford to shop around globally for my IVF, but there would be a lot of couples for whom it would be awful.

@ShatnersWig - awful isn’t it? If the NHS had taken my thyroid issue seriously and treated me when it was first tested, then I probably wouldn’t even have needed IVF as my PCOS might have been better controlled.

@Floopily those 'rights' are not there for the parents. They are there for the children. Children have the right to adequate care. That means ensuring businesses accomodate parents with young children.

If those parents didn't work, the economy would be particularly fucked.

I just have a massive dislike off people who gaslight other people just because they themselves have never felt what the other person has. It is not hard to understand other people like and want things I might not want for myself.

Instead of celebrating that a lot of dickheads on this thread are arguing to remove it entirely from the NHS.

Just because I and other posters have issues with IVF being on the NHS, doesn’t mean we’re dickheads.

Funnily enough, name calling doesn’t make your ‘opinion’ more compelling.

Teddybear45 that is whataboutery. Surrogacy is unethical because it puts the wants of adults before the best interest of children and because it reduces women to things (incubators). Egg donation is ethically questionable for similar reasons, and sperm donation too though the impact is on the baby, obviously there is no physical impact or risk to the man s there iswith egg donation!

The fact that other practices are also ethically debatable doesn't change the ethics of surrogacy.

The happy illusion that altruistic surrogacy is always genuinely freely entered into, that female relatives are never emotionally blackmailed, that for poorer women being "altruistic surrogates" for strangers it isn't essentially just badly paid commercial surrogacy by a more palatable name is very convenient for those who want to believe it. Strangely enough I'd bet altruistic surrogates having babies for strangers are never higher rate tax payers having babies for fine upstanding minimum wage earning health care assistants married to TAs... I wonder why it's always poorer women bearing children for richer couples or individuals?

What happens when something goes wrong in a surrogate pregnancy. However altruistic the mother she isn't compensated for birth injuries leaving her doubly incontinent for life or any other potentially life changing injuries impacting her own family? I saw surrogacy suggested on another thread because a woman's partner wanted a biological child but she had always planned to become a parent via adoption (not "why don't you adopt?" But a woman who had never wished to be pregnant and always planned to adopt) she was afraid of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth and somebody piped up "have you thought of using a surrogate?". So pay someone else to take the risks, and deliberately create a baby to be removed from it's mother at birth, denying that baby the fourth trimester and creating potential issues for the child deliberately in a premeditated way, to satisfy the want of an adult.

Putting adults wants before the best interests of children is never considered ethical, except where adults want to buy babies...

Number3or4 who is gasslighting feelings? Feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with rights. Empathy is required when discussing feelings, but AIBU is a massive public section of a public internet forum with millions of users. Probably a reader of the forum has felt almost every humanly possible feeling. This doesn't mean that we can only discuss the weather here or have to start every post with a disclaimer that all feelings are valid for the person experiencing them. Nothing could ever be said except the utterly banal.

People feel what they feel. Infertility is clearly devastating.

People's genuine, real emotional responses to their own situations not however change what is or is not a right or is or is not ethical.

I and several other posters aren’t saying that any one is less deserving of having a child but rather, with the growing pressure on NHS resources, should IVF be an automatic right on it?

I can be sympathetic to the plight of sufferers of infertility whilst disagreeing with the treatment being an automatic right on the NHS. I have issues with the ‘I paid in therefore I should be able take what I want from it’ argument very simplistic.

I have no problems with IVF using the couple's own gamets and womb. I don't have a particular opinion on it being funded by the NHS because I don't use or pay for the NHS any more.

I am strongly opposed to putting the wants of adults before the best interests of children or using women's bodies as commodities. I believe surrogacy is almost always exploitation as is egg donation often, and not in the child's best interest.

Like a pp I find the "I paid more so I get more" argument ridiculously simplistic in the case of public health care. Teddy The NHS was created on a socialist "from each according to his or her ability to each according to his or her need" (not want) model. It cannot function on a commercial/ capitalist model by its very nature, nor does it have scope to service wants. Putting the wants of the richer before the needs or equivalent wants of the poorer is a capitalist model which only works in an American style health care model. Most of Europe has fairly socialist health care models which are actually often fairer than the NHS, America is an anomaly in the first world.

Andysbestadventure I'm not saying for one minute that parents / children shouldn't have additional rights to ensure children are adequately cared for. That's a given and my workplace is really flexible about those things, as it should be.

What I'm talking about is the expectation of people with children to additional special treatment simply because they have children i.e. you HAVE to give me Tuesday off for little Johnny's school assembly even though other people already have it booked as holiday and it will leave you short of cover because I'm a PARENT and I HAVE to be there. Entirely different to 'I need to take a days parental leave because my child minder is ill / my child is off school sick and they can't go to nursery'.

I have worked with people who regularly make it their colleagues problem that they have children and therefore can't be at work or have to leave early for XYZ ridiculous reason. You also get that with some people who don't have children don't get me wrong but it seems to be a particular mindset for some people that having children means your wants (not needs, or rights) should be prioritised above everyone else's.

This isn't what this thread was originally about though so apologies to the OP for the digression!

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?

Yep, totally agree with this. The NHS funds new livers for alcoholics, new lungs for smokers, boob jobs, nose jobs, gender reassignment surgery, all kinds of stuff that won't actually have any benefit for the country at large. Yet it restricts IVF funding and doesn't even follow it's own recommendations about providing three cycles for each qualifying couple. Yet funding IVF properly will, if successful, help to provide more future taxpayers down the line, as well as making those successful couples much happier into the bargain. If the NHS is in the business of providing lifestyle surgeries and medical interventions, which it clearly is, then providing IVF is a no brainer.

The NHS does not fund new lungs for smokers.
The judgement of anyone with lung cancer or lung problems means that treatment for lung issues is a very underfunded area, whether those issues are caused by smoking or not. In reality a lot of lung issues in older men are caused by exposure to asbestosis when younger.
My uncle died of this, the standard of care is very poor.

And my uncle was often assumed by strangers to have caused his own issues through smoking in spite of never smoking.
My friend who died of breast cancer, a disease often caused by lifestyle issues, was treated very differently by casual acquaintances and had much more access to additional support services, than my uncle who died of asbestosis.
People spout ridiculous prejudice all the time about different illnesses, and sadly that has a real life impact on people's lives and the standard of treatment and support they receive.

If the NHS is in the business of providing lifestyle surgeries and medical interventions, which it clearly is

Yes, it clearly is. The point is whether it should be, as that's not what it was set up to do. And if we want it to do all these things, are we all happy to pay an extra 5 p on our income tax. Most people say yes to the former but no to the latter..

But still, Zaffe, we have the situation where people with actual medical conditions that affect their daily lives, regardless of the future burden on the NHS we will cause as we age, are NOT being treated. When, as you say, lifestyle surgeries ARE. You say IVF makes sense because the lives being created will be future taxpayers. What about those of us current taxpayers whose medical conditions aren't being treated but could have a course of IVF? That makes no sense whatsoever. Let's ignore the medical needs of existing people and create new people instead. Genius argument.

What @gabsdot45 says is bang on the money. It's children who are the ones with rights and whose rights are paramount, as enshrined in UK law.

It's also true to say that the rights of the child to a home, food, clothing, nurturing and loving care don't come courtesy of a biological tie. Biological parents have been known to do unspeakable things to their children.

Nor do they come care of the parents' economic circumstances. The idea that IVF treatment should be a privilege only available to those who can write of £thousands on fertility treatment - or, for that matter, should be prioritized for higher-end taxpayers - is really pretty repulsive.

I'm estimating that the money we've spent on fertility treatment, Chicago blood tests and myriad intrusive examinations during our 10-year effort to have a child wouldn't have left us with much change from £70,000. Incidentally, I'm a higher-end taxpayer too, and took nothing from other taxpayers toward the cost of this treatment. What difference does that make? Absolutely none IMO, and fertility treatment should not be limited to those who are in a similar position.

Incidentally, in the UK the patients' GP is legally obliged to fill in a form relating to the potential wellbeing of any child conceived by IVF, before the clinic will accept them for treatment.