EHRC abandon claim against NHS - failing to provide fertility treatments to trans

[justicewomen]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/30/legal-case-against-nhs-failing-provide-fertility-treatments/amp/

Anyone tell me what this says? Sorry another trans issue

The NHS can only fund fertility treatment for people who are infertile. Really? I'm prepared to be corrected, but I thought the NHS provided sperm for single women or lesbian couples. Clearly these women aren't infertile per se, or no baby would ever have resulted. They were/are just lacking access to male gametes.

I don’t think the NHS provide sperm. They will treat single women with infertility but you have to provide the sperm ?

Also as a single woman using a donor you have to have an interview to demonstrate your fitness to be a parent. I would argue that if you are so gender dysphoric you will destroy your own fertility you are not in a good position to go through pregnancy. As for trans women I don’t think the NHS should be facilitating the use of surrogates.

I think this should be like homelessness. The council is under no obligation to house you if you have made yourself intentionally homeless. Likewise if you destroy your own fertility deliberately you shouldn’t be eligible for taxpayer funded treatment.

Mrs Tiggy - policies do vary in different areas, but the NHS is funded to investigate and treat illness and injury. IVF policies are intended to set out the criteria for people with medical infertility.

I have been involved with a legal challenge from a single woman wanting IVF who tried to argue that the local NHS should make an exception to the IVF policy for her, and attempted to use the argument that it discriminated against lesbians.

She got nowhere because she wasn't infertile.

I don’t understand from the Telegraph article why the action against NHS England was dropped. Did EHRC get what they wanted? Why otherwise would EHRC walk away empty-handed before the case had been heard?

I’d like to know how NHS England will now be funding egg or sperm storage for (post-pubertal) transitioning people.

Will egg and sperm storage for transitioning people be funded from their local CCGs- that is, via the same postcode lottery as for cancer patients who need to store eggs or sperm before having cancer treatment which removes fertility?

(More info about that here: fertilitynetworkuk.org/for-those-trying-to-become-parents/nhs-funding/nhs-funding-faq/)

Or will eggs or sperm storage for transitioning people be funded directly by NHS England? Some specialised NHS services are already funded in this way.

This means this funding is not susceptible to being downgraded or withdrawn according to whatever local priorities there are at CCG level. So in this scenario there would be no postcode lottery for people storing eggs or sperm before they transition, unlike with cancer patients at CCG level?

Access to this central funding would be subject to whatever restrictions NHS England put in place. But given that some local CCGs don’t fund any fertility treatments at all, then if there is a central fund available to transitioning people then that would be a better starting place, in theory at least.

I also would be interested to know what the funding arrangements at NHS England will be for storage of immature ovarian tissue or immature sperm-producing tissue for children or young people who haven’t yet gone through puberty at the time their fertility is about to be removed by drugs, hormones or surgery?

I’d assume if these children are pre-pubescent, eg are not ovulating... (because they aren’t yet old enough to have gone through natural puberty? or because they have artificially suppressed natural puberty onset-or puberty progression- via blockers?) ...then they are into a much more experimental and invasive situation. their doctors would have to work out how to get viable mature eggs and sperm out of this extracted immature tissue. if that is even possible?

All this makes me think back to how young kids (and many young adults come to that) could possibly understand what they are going to be going through or giving up with all this?

Transmen have to meet the same eligibility criteria as other biological women.

Treatment and the expectations for success also have to be physiologically possible.

Very informative Al1ce, thank you.

I’m also very uncomfortable with the push towards commercial surrogacy with the ‘right’ to a baby and the ‘right’ to use a surrogate."

Reminds me of Amnesty telling us sex was a human right

I don’t understand from the Telegraph article why the action against NHS England was dropped

Events have moved swiftly since The Prime Minister declared that transwomen were women. It is thought that she had the full backing of her then MInister for Health, Jeremy Hunt.

The Health Ministry was keen to establish that gender dysphoria was no mental health condition involving expensive treatments. The NHS wanted to move gender dysphoria patients to 'sexual health' with relatively inexpensive treatments with hormones.

It was keen to extend the use of mixed sex wards - and the progress of transgender rights gave it the perfect cover. NHS trusts went all out to become Stonewall Champions and replaced the protected characterisitc of 'sex' with 'gender'.

EHRC thought that they were onto a winner.

The Ministry appeared sympathetic to the cause, until it was faced with demands for expensive, scarce fertility treatment and a backlash from the public. It read the room correctly.

The EHRC - a government quango - is currently on the back foot.
It's pro-trans stance has resulted in misinformation on the law that has only been corrected by persistent calls from women's organisations.

It's credibility as an Equality champion has been shot to bits, and its bias towards trans has been exposed.

The EHRC has read the writing on the wall. It backed the wrong horse and needs to claw back some respectability.

since The Prime Minister declared that transwomen were women.

I don’t think Theresa May has ever said that - that was Penny Mordaunt.

I agree theotherpam. Of course it is also entirely possible that some have realised this particular battle was the wrong stalking horse. (Apologies for mixed metaphors).

Tantrums can’t overcome biological reality.

This from The Guardian.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/31/transgender-fertility-row-ends-with-a-draw

"Transitioning treatment results in loss of fertility. The way to prevent this is extraction and storage of eggs and sperm, a process known as gamete extraction and storage, which allows transgender people to have their own biological children post-transition. "

Glib statements like this carefully skirt around two massive elephants in the room.

1. Transition means children are sterilised. How can children consent to that? Meanwhile coy mention of gamete extraction and storage leaves out the detail of how this is achieved - if it is even possible with a prepubertal child and even for a child that has been allowed a natural puberty egg collection isn't a walk in the park, requiring as it does ovarian stimulation, vaginal scans to monitor egg production and eventual extraction.

1. Who are subsequent embryos going to be implanted into to produce the biological children?

Human right to sex (amnesty)

men must be given women to fuck
what if their sexual desires are illegal?

Human right to babies

men must be provided with incubators for their children. At the moment the incubator can only come in the form of a living woman

Thank you for the Guardian link Iused that confirms that funding decision making will rest locally at CCG level.
I would expect that we haven’t heard the last of this in that case because not all CCGs will fund fertility treatments but those who typically don’t fund will make an exception for transitioning people, then that will raise questions as to why not to fund other patients who need this storage to be done too.

’But NHS England has welcomed the commission’s decision to drop the case, leaving decisions over the provision of fertility services to the individual CCGs.’

Oops. Missing an ‘if’ there:

*but IF those who typically don’t fund

Might be an idea to stop children destroying their own fertility

“Local” decision making isn’t quite as autonomous as the public are led to believe. Most policies are developed regionally, then adopted locally with one or two minor tweaks.

The Dept of Health also apply considerable pressure to CCGs not to set funding precedents.