To ask if people today don’t agree with ivf?!

[Yaerry]

or am I just naive? Watched the new documentary about Jean Purdy and I’m surprised there was so much push back at the time. It’s made me wonder if one day surrogacy will be more accepted? I thought ivf was just a standard thing now that wasn’t controversial.

@ConfusedKangaroo I disagree. Some would go for IVF despite what they say here, others would not.

I don't think that would affect the child, Neesnewname. It would be different if it involved donor sperm or ova.

What many find difficult about IVF is the idea of fertilised eggs being stored and maybe thrown away after a time. It's quite an emotive subject.

Surrogacy is a different matter altogether.

Once someone has died their organs aren’t suitable for transplant.

Organs must be removed before death occurs for a successful transplant.

Yes but when they are on life support and will die when it's switched off. Different to someone who is a " live" donor for a kidney for example then continues their own life with one kidney

They die when their organs are removed.

Infertility can be the result of an illness though. If breast cancer necessitates the removal of a woman's breast(s) the NHS will cover implants. When cancer leaves a woman needing IVF in order in conceive either because the cancer was in her reproductive system or because the treatment for cancer renders her infertile shouldn't the same apply?
IVF isn't all about women who left it 'too late' often it is needed because of an illness. Why should other symptoms be treated but not infertility? Either the NHS should be for life threatening situations only or we accept that it encompasses treatments that improve quality of life.

They will always know know one or both of their biological parents did not want them.

It is not remotely related to not wanting a child. You are framing this with emotion that doesn't exist.
You said you speak from experience.
What is it?

If you conceive a child with donated sperm, for example, the situation to be phrased to a child is “we wanted you so much and this man chose to help us have you because your Daddy wasn’t able”.

If you had a one night stand and accidentally got pregnant and the man was horrified and wanted nothing to do with the mother or the child, sadly that is closer to the child being rejected. Donors don’t “not want” children, they want to donate for whatever reason they choose.

Needless to say, either one or both or neither of the children in the above scenarios could have great childhoods. The method of conception of planned, desperately wanted donor conception really isn’t as bad as some people make out.

The law in this country means children have more rights and will receive information about their donors. We can only truly measure the impact when this cohort have grown up fully and when more time has passed. I do understand why people go abroad but anonymity is really problematic. I would always advocate for donor conceived people to have the choice of being able to trace their biological origins.

But egg/sperm donors don't give away children they give away gametes.

Babies born from donor gametes weren't unwanted by their biological parents because they didn't exist when the gametes were donated and weren't given away as children. Donors don't give eggs or sperm because they don't want the children they could possibly make, they give them to help people. Even if a baby concieved using donor sperm was wanted by the man that gave the sperm, he couldn't have had that child because the child wouldn't exist without the woman who used his sperm to make a baby and that baby is hers and her husband's not the donors.

I understand the trauma of adopted children knowing their biological parents didn't want them and gave them away but donor conceived children were never unwanted or given away it's completely different.

As I said (in my first reply) I am the product of a donor and do find this difficult. The man who donated sperm is still my biological father, he gained financially by donating his sperm and was happy in knowledge he would never know his future children. There is plenty of evidence to show other donor conceived children like myself have found it difficult in its own way.

This isn't just a question to you but also to the people here who have said that the NHS shouldn't fund lifestyle choices (as if being infertile is a lifestyle choice but anyway) .. I take it you also don't agree with the NHS providing care for pregnant women and the delivery of babies? The NHS also funds contraceptive pills etc, so I assume you're also against that? Can I assume you've never used the NHS to have pregnancy related appointments or to deliver a baby if you have one, or to give you contraception?

The problem here though is that the fertility needs of a women diagnosed with cancer are not greater or more important than the women with infertility of a different or unknown cause. So ethically you have to go all out (with realistic age limits) but the NHS can't afford this. Arguable not providing it to anyone is more ethical than one person's medical cause of infertility trumping anothers.

But this is the crux of the NHS funding debate across just about every speciality.

Thank you! Exactly what I wanted to say. If the NHS can pay for the care of pregnant women, births of babies, contraception etc why not IVF? Infertile couples pay into the system too. Infertility is a health condition.

Holding the baby at birth has pros and cons. The need for attachment is immediately fulfilled, but then the object of the attachment is taken away again causing distress to both parties.
Yes, it could happen if a mother is unwell following the birth, though it may still be possible to lay the child on the mother's chest or stomach. But hopefully the baby will soon be returned to the mum and less harm is done.

There is a large difference between IVF and maternity services under the NHS. IVF is a choice. If the NHS does not provide it people may be very unhappy, but it is not a health problem. If the NHS did not provide maternity care, mothers and babies would die or be severely injured with life long disabilities.

@Rosie2024 do you know how offensive it is to essentially call the existence of 10 million people 'ridiculous'?

And again, fertile people get their 'want' funded on the NHS?

I also assume you don't think contraception should be on the NHS? As it is just a 'want' after all. This would just mean contraception is an added expense only to women.

So having IVF is a choice,but having a baby naturally is not?

I'm not suggesting that only cancer patients should get NHS funded treatment (or even that the NHS should definitely fund IVF) I'm just trying to get those who regard infertility as 'not an illness' to think things through in a bit more depth.
Do they feel the NHS shouldn't provide prosthetics legs because amputees could get about on crutches?
Do they think infertility shouldn't be covered at all e.g. no investigation into why a couple can't conceive, no gynecology ops that improve the chances of conception? If so do they hold a life saving only view on other areas covered by the NHS? Or other attempts to 'thwart nature', 'play god' etc.
The issue is never black and white and there are a million shades of grey in between 'all fertility treatment should be illegal' and 'the state should pay for unlimited tries with without any restrictions' most people will have an idea as to where they think the line should be drawn but lots of posters on this thread don't seem to have thought through the spectrum of options and are seeing it as a binary.

I'd question that so many people are against it and offer those that are proliferate here.

"The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) uses a cost-effectiveness threshold of £20,000 to £30,000 per Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) to guide its decision-making process. NICE considers interventions that cost less than £20,000 per QALY to be cost effective. Interventions that cost between £20,000 and £30,000 per QALY may also be considered cost effective if certain conditions are met"

NICE use QALY to determine funding decisions, IVF is expensive, with often poor success rates, and the distress of infertility is difficulty to quantify. It's not all about playing god, but about complicated economic decisions of doing the most for the most.

TBH I don't think many adopted children in the last 40 years were the children of people who didn't want them.
The vast majority were removed for child protection reasons.

Going back further to the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s the majority were removed from teen mothers. Causing lots of trauma to both the young mothers and the babies.

I am 33 - someone I went to school with has 6 kids, one of whom is already known as a local county lines runner at 14. She had the custody of the youngest children handed to their father. She has had 6 births/perinatal treatment on the NHS.

In 2018 it was estimated that a straightforward birth & postnatal care cost the NHS ~£4000, I’m sure will have now gone up. And that was not including prenatal care/complications/NICU stays etc.

My close friend is a nurse who had to borrow money from her in laws for IVF because she wasn’t eligible through the very service she works for. It worked for her first time, and she is a wonderful mother.

now tell me how withholding IVF from people like her is fair, when there are people that can rack up expenses as much as they like purely because of their biology.

Then I also hope you disagree with fertile couples having children?

By the way, the UK has a declining birth rate. It's not a good thing.

Yet NICE recommends 3 funded cycles.....

@KimberleyClark Having a baby can be a choice, although not always. But whether the NHS provided maternity care or not, babies would still be conceived and born. My dad was born before the creation of the NHS and him and his mum nearly died. He got stuck and they fetched a Dr who managed to get him out in time without any brain damage. But there was no midwife present or any other medic originally.