To think some older women having tax payers funded ivf are hypocrites?

[Spiderbug]

There seems to be a substantial group of people who are ok with calling teen mums a waste of their tax money but then leave child bearing too late and expect the tax payers to foot the bill for their multiple ivf cycles which costs the tax payer up to 100 million a year.

Hypocrites!!!

Maybe there’s a bigger picture in here somewhere - helping populate the UK, where birth rates are already falling.

I don't think that the NHS funds multiple rounds of IVF for older mothers:

Aged 40 to 42: Eligible patients are typically offered 1 full cycle. This usually applies only if you have never had previous IVF treatment and have a normal ovarian reserve.
Aged 43 and over: NHS funding is generally not available, and you would need to look into private fertility treatment options.

So not even nice older women over 40 would get multiple rounds of IVF.

I’d assume the “older women” are at least net contributors from a tax perspective.

Presumably the teens have dropped out of school and haven’t actually paid any tax at the point of pregnancy.

I can’t be mad about anyone getting fertility help from the NHS.

If it helps, I was an older mum, didn’t need IVF and got pregnant at 35 (first cycle), 38 (surprise) and 42 (surprise). I paid a lot of tax before then, then saved the NHS money by having private births (£22k a time) and pay school fees so haven’t taken £8k per child a year from the state education budget. All whilst paying a significant amount of tax. I’ll use those “credits” to contribute towards the “older women” IVF that offends you so much. HTH 😂

Honestly op and I say this with kindness “grow up and get that chip off your shoulder”

You don’t like Mary at work, you think she looks down on you and judges you for being a teenage mother (that’s probably the chip on your shoulder speaking). You know she’s having ivf, you assume it’s nhs and assume as she’s 30 she left it too late. You have no clue. Instead of being spiteful to a fellow human going through the hell that is infertily, try being the bigger person and showing some compassion.

At the age of 32 it was in my notes that I was a geriatric mother.
The issue is we are expected to do it all now. Education, career, marriage and motherhood. All this takes time. Gone are the days of happily settling down at 18 and raising a family.

I’ll bite. I had my kids as an older mum. Yes I was fortunate to have nhs funded ivf (2 rounds) for which I was very fortunate. I would like to point out that this was after having met my husband at 30 and having settled down spent 10 years thereafter having fertility issues/many miscarriages incl loss at 5 months and an ectopic that ruptured. So having Ivf late (funded both by nhs and myself) wasn’t a lifestyle choice at all. I’ve also never slagged off any teen mums. Do you have the same attitude to the impact of dealing with alcohol abuse, smoking or obesity OP? Even if I had deliberately left it too late (to be clear I didn’t) I’ve spent years paying into the system and so given I was eligible why should I have turned down the offer of funding?

If you're frustrated by the hypocrisy of criticising one group for using taxpayers money whilst using such money themselves - there's so many examples to choose from! It happens a lot, all over the place. People think their need is justified whilst others' needs aren't.

Women who've delayed motherhood purely through their own choice, who then get NHS IVF, who also judge teen mums, are a vanishingly small group.

Do you know how hard it is it get funded IVF?

you have to go through multiple tests, you have to have been trying to conceive for over a year. They won’t give funded IVF cos you are too old, there has to be either medical condition or “unexplained infertily” and aging out doesn’t count under any of these categories.

in most NHS clinics there needs to be more that 8% chance the pregnancy will be successful and once you have had a successful pregnancy you don’t get another round of IVF - although you can use any left over embryos and just pay the cost of the hormone treatment which is about £300

@Enjoyout

... All whilst paying a significant amount of tax. I’ll use those “credits” to contribute towards the “older women” IVF that offends you so much.

As a terribly old lady (39) who's about to give birth to a much wanted IVF baby, I sincerely thank you

Don’t hold your breath, I’ve already asked @AmazingGreatAunt this and she hasn’t replied.

You would have got yours because if the difficulties. OP thinks you can just rock up at 40 and go o didn’t want them before I now need help and get it!

I am sure you, like I know that’s not the case. It’s one of the most intrusive set of tests I have ever had, multiple scans, internal examinations which on my period etc it was not an easy experience

I can assume they think infertility is some sort of moral failing

I was a secondary school teacher for over ten years. I think we had one teenage mother in that time, and all the staff I spoke to expressed nothing but sympathy and concern for her, and did everything they could to help her through her GCSEs. I met a lot more women undergoing IVF than I did teen mums, and none of them ever criticised either the real teenage mum we had or any hypothetical ones either.

… So she’s receiving discounts as a single person?

This! I don’t judge either group (especially not based on tax implications).

I would however still wonder how many women OP has actually encountered who:

1. left it “too late”
2. had tax payer funded IVF
3. are judging teenage mothers for “wasting taxes”

Aye, but that leaves them money for acrylic nails, brows, lashes, extensions, and sunbeds, don't forget.

You are fertile from the onset of menstruation until you are at menopause and this will no longer be the case if you have some fertility issue.

Fertility doesn't wane at 30. Not at all.

Oh @Spiderbug you’re not getting the point the poster is making.

no one is saying teen mums don’t face stigma.

no one is saying that older women accessing IVF on the NHS cannot be hypocrites.

What you’re failing to acknowledge is that there is ni evidence whatsoever to say that this is a substantial sample

You're the hypocrite!

It's the other way around as far as I can see. You're the one judging women receiving tax-payer funded IVF (at 30+!!) while tax payers like myself had to pay for you when you had a baby at 15.

Jog on.

OP is talking about 30 year olds though - there’s no evidence of any adverse outcomes giving birth aged 30. It is a very normal age to have children (and somebody going through an IVF cycle aged 30 likely started TTC around 25-27, so absolutely optimal time).

There is quite a lot of evidence of adverse outcomes getting pregnant aged 14 though, as OP did. Far more likely to have birth complications, quite aside from the socioeconomic factors.

Well all the teen mums I knew/ know went on to have great careers. Including my nan.
My friends of which there are about ten, all have worked full time and paid their taxes
So have these older women.
I think people that leave it too late then do ivf should have been better at planning, but sometimes planning isnt the issue, could be that they met their partner late or were busy building wells in africa.
Either way they are both producing new people who will pay taxes themselves and so both groups should mind their own business about the other.

Are there no men involved at either end of the reproductive age span?

Women are to blame..too young. Blame. Too old, blame.

We just reproduce via parthenogenesis do we? And still get it wrong. Amazing.

I think they way you have phrased it is unreasonable but I agree that expecting expensive fertility treatment bwcause you have waited too long is unreasonable. And there is increasing evidence that increasing maternal age leads to increased risk of life long issues for the child that also need funded.

Is it the same woman doing both? And the costs of IVF pale in the costs paid to rear children.

Also nobody “leaves it too late”. They simply wait until a sensible position to have children.

I just get a bit annoyed at people confidently proclaiming that "there is a good reason for infertility". I have never seen a good explanation for this and it gives the impression they haven't really thought it through.