Suing the NHS to gain access to ivf treatment

[AliceIdentifiesasaCamel]

Supposed to be getting ready to do school run, so dropping this here, will return later. When I can organise my words into something coherent

news.sky.com/story/nhs-sued-over-transgender-fertility-treatment-11509918

Just saw this on Sky & came straight here to see if anyone had started a thread.

This is awful. The NHS will be destroyed under the strain of GRS, hormones, fertility treatment etc then the inevitable law suits from all the detransitioning kids in the future.

Listened to an article on the radio the other day about the infected blood scandal that gave a lot of people HIV, Hep C, etc in the 80s - some of them still can't get appropriate treatment and many have died as a result. The NHS has scarce resources.

Where I live women are offered zero free rounds of IVF on the NHS now. Women who are infertile through no choice of their own, this is going to anger a lot of people.

I don't in theory object to them freezing sperm and eggs prior to treatment but I don't believe the NHS has an obligation to foot the bill for the consequences of elective treatment.

Of course this argument is going to end up being the usual we will all kill ourselves if we don't get what we want.

What about the strain that cis male perpetrated violence against women puts on the NHS? Whatever this would cost would be cents on the dollar compared to that.

What about the NHS dollars spent treating women who have been raped by cis males?

What about the pay gap leading to women being too poor to eat well, heat their homes, or take preventive steps to prevent illness. What pressure does that put on the public health system?

Its a waste of this forum to be so focused on transgendered people, as though they are the cause of all women's problems.

The problem is the fucking men in pants, I bloody well promise you.

Enough of this crap. I am so over it. I have always called myself a feminist but I am deeply ashamed by some of the small minded, mean and bigoted pearl clutching I see in this forum lately.

What about the strain that cis male perpetrated violence against women puts on the NHS? Whatever this would cost would be cents on the dollar compared to that.

No woman choses to be abused.

What about the NHS dollars spent treating women who have been raped by cis males?

No woman choses to be raped.

What about the pay gap leading to women being too poor to eat well, heat their homes, or take preventive steps to prevent illness. What pressure does that put on the public health system?

No woman choses any of these things.

You seem to have difficulty with the concept of consent.

Surely becoming infertile is a side effect of the drugs that they willingly chose to take which will have been explained to them and written in the drugs leaflet under side effects.

Fucks sake you cannot have your cake and eat it.

I think the first half of SilverBirch's post sums this up. The NHS is under a massive strain. Every winter or cannot vote. People are dying because they cannot access the treatment they need. Families are starving because the pay gap is getting wider, kids are not receiving an education because the schools are woefully underfunded.

So why the bloody hell is the NHS funding the damaging and mutilating treatment that is being requested by people who believe it will help their MH? Unnecessary medical treatment that causes all sorts of horrific side effects, one of which (and a binding obvious one) is infertility. Why should the NHS then provide IVF etc to people who have chosen to damage their infertility when women, natal women, cannot access it on the NHS?

It's on a par with expecting the NHS to pay to have that dodgy tattoo done on their gap year in some dodgy part of the world removed.

Hi Aspie

My point is that MEN who identify as MEN choose to perpetuate it.

I think this trans stuff has highjacked the attention that should go to real feminist issues.

This trans stuff is a fundamental feminist issue. It’s the starting place for the other, also very pressing issues.

Perhaps those whose sole campaigns are about their identity rights, which massively affects girls and women’s safety, dignity and privacy, might also want to think about what other less woman-hating political activism they could be doing?

Trans people make up less than 1% of the population. Even if I agreed that they were out to harm women, they hardly have the numbers to perpetrate the harm people here seem to fear.

Two women in the UK are killed every week by their cis male partners/former partners.

Maybe that's a better starting point.

Agree op. Also we are told that this isn’t a mental illness, not at all. Yet the NHS should still pay for drugs, fertility treatment, breast implants, mastectomies,etc etc etc.

Silverbirchtree 'the problem is men in pants' WE KNOW

And part of our concern about self-ID is those violent men using the transgender debate to get access to women IN ORDER TO RAPE THEM.

I think it all starts from the same place, societal expectations of gender, toxic masculinity, etc. I agree with SilverBirchTree there is a degree of obsession on these boards which is out of proportion with the threat posed by transgenderism. I don't believe TWAW or male people should be in women's prisons, I do think that some transactivists push far to far, but claiming trans people are going to put a massive strain on the NHS is OTT, refusing to vote Labour because of the trans issue when there are so many more pressing issues like inequality, rough sleeping and poverty seems crazy to me.

This:
Why should the NHS then provide IVF etc to people who have chosen to damage their infertility when women, natal women, cannot access it on the NHS?

Silver Birch appears to be derailing the conversation- wasn't this thread to discuss whether the NHS should find ivf for folks who have chosen to render themselves infertile through unnecessary medical treatment? Also to discuss whether doing the NHS was a just action? There's many other debates on the FWR board to discuss stats and whether trans women are a danger to women physically or if women just want a bit of privacy in women only spaces from a male gaze.

So SilverBirch, who should the NHS provide ivf to and why?

Totallywired but if the NHS can't find people to have IVF due to their infertility caused by no fault of their own, why on earth should TRAs sue the NHS to get funding for people who CAUSED their own infertility?

I don't think TRAs should sue the NHS.

This was reported on my local news this morning at the end of a very short headline type piece as "suing as they claim they are being denied their human right to a family".

Sloppy reporting i thought. Otherwise anyone who is declined for adoption or has unsuccessful ivf treatment or has no access to ivf could surely sue regardless of your personal circumstance if everyone has a right to have children.

Isn't Jamie's partner a woman? Do we infer that she is unable to have children - or is Jamie (who is, surprisingly, a volunteer with Mermaids) bringing a test case based on themselves?

Because I can't see how the 'right to family life' (which can't mean 'you definitely have the right to bear children', because not everyone can regardless of the availability of treatment) means the 'male' partner in this couple has to be the one who bears a child.

I am unsettled by the idea that there is a human right to have a family.

I don't know how it should be worded, but I don't think you have the right to a family, I think you should have the right to not not have a family - ie. you shouldn't be prevented from having a family, rather than one should be facilitated in having one.

I think you should have the right to not not have a family - ie. you shouldn't be prevented from having a family, rather than one should be facilitated in having one.

I think that's what the notion of a 'right' means.

I think that's what the notion of a 'right' means.

Hopefully, yes, that is what it means. Hopefully this will be struck down on that basis.

Given that the NHS does not offer infertile women the "right" to IVF at present, I don't see how such a case could succeed.