Article in the Guardian. Fertility discrimination.

[SpringCrocus]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/07/married-lesbian-couple-launch-discrimination-action-against-nhs

Given how dire most NHS IVF availability is for anyone I’m surprised the focus is on this specific topic and not the generally dire availability to everyone.

I’d be doubtful anyone will be getting IVF on the NHS in ten years time.

I’d be doubtful anyone will be getting IVF on the NHS in ten years time.

Sad, but probably true.

Been pondering on this some more. I think this also feeds into the idea, similar to adoption\surrogacy (personal experience of adoption), that everyone is somehow entitled to a baby regardless of what getting that baby entails.

I do support NHS funded fertility treatment and I think access should be better and fairer. However people aren’t entitled to babies regardless of what it might take to get them. If you and your partner do not have the biology to create a baby alone, your not ‘entitled’ to access to someone else’s body/donations to get one.

I think there’s a grey area between providing medical treatment to address fertility and people expecting to be provided with a baby at any cost.

@GCmiddle

The notion of 'social infertility' seems to be gaining traction. It seemingly applies to couples in same-sex relationships, as well as single people ie those who have no possibility of conceiving naturally. It troubles me, as it is stretching a definition too far. People in same sex relationships and single people aren't 'infertile', that is just their particular circumstances. Sure, they may need help to conceive, but call things what they are - words have meanings!

I think it is a sort of odd extrapolation from some of the arguments around SSM. There are people who claimed that not allowing SSM is discriminatory because there is no essential difference between a homo or heterosexual couple and that they should be seen as equal. And a similar argument about adoption.

They then take that to a sort of equality of outcome approach, and so see an inability to naturally have children by such couples as a kind of inequality that society has to correct. If they don't they are creating a systemically unequal society.

There are some inaccuracies on this thread about what’s already happening in NHS funding for fertility treatments but it is difficult to find the overall picture because of the ‘postcode lottery’ and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having different policies nationally on top of that.

Some NHS clinics can and do recruit donors and NHS clinics do provide donated eggs and sperm to NHS patients.
NHS funded donation treatment is based on patient need not just preference- medical infertility and/or social circumstances like being single or in a same sex relationship.
Plus whether the patients meet the local funding criteria.
Some NHS CCGs don’t fund any fertility treatment, others not donor sperm or eggs at all, others have criteria around any previous living children to members of a couple in a relationship- and many more criteria can be applied because it’s up to them. They don’t have to follow NICE guidelines.
Some examples here: www.bpas.org/about-our-charity/press-office/press-releases/research-finds-significant-barriers-to-nhs-funded-fertility-treatment-for-female-same-sex-couples/

Some donor conceived people, who are informed of the circumstances, are very distressed about the circumstances of their conception, while others are not. More here from a UK charity working with families who used donation: www.dcnetwork.org/personal-stories

The BPAS info shows that there seems to be a problem with lesbians and single women getting less access to NHS funded treatment than heterosexual couples do so that’s definitely worthy of looking at further via this case. It’s interesting to see BPAS and Stonewall lining up on this case as they have some key ideological differences around gender politics. I’m a bit surprised at this case that they seem to be calling for NHS treatment to be provided outside of the NICE guidance though. Presumably that would be quite challenging to win since the guidance is evidence based. Anyway hopefully other people with more knowledge on this could comment.

Sure, they may need help to conceive, but call things what they are - words have meanings!

I remember a transwoman talking about their 'infertility' on Lorraine, this person spoke about how women can't get pregnant for all kinds of reasons.

The reason this person couldn't get pregnant was because this person is male.

If the word 'infertility' is stretched in its meaning to encompass same sex couples and single people then it's not infertility it's biology, and if we lose the term or the reality of the term, we lose what goes along with it.

Are you infertile if you are too old to get pregnant?
Are you infertile if you are too single?
Are you infertile due to your sexual orientation and your same-sex relationship?

NHS treatment to be provided outside of the NICE guidance though

Yes. That said, NICE guidance is:
–guidance and CCGs implement their own version of it (as PPs describe);
–open to judicial review.

I should think the parties are looking for a judicial review on several grounds that would open up the issue of reproductive justice/social fertility issues.

The reason this person couldn't get pregnant was because this person is male

WTF how did that make the TV? What levels of delusion are people suffering?

Male infertility is as distressing as female but spoken about a whole lot less.

Assisted conception is there to assist nature not defy the laws of nature or play God.

I am 100 percent for the rights of lesbians. Lesbians definitely have the right to get pregnant and have babies. However, it is not the fault of the government that lesbian sex does not result in pregnancies. If lesbians want babies, they need to get themselves some sperm, just like other women.

@PrincessNutella

I am 100 percent for the rights of lesbians. Lesbians definitely have the right to get pregnant and have babies. However, it is not the fault of the government that lesbian sex does not result in pregnancies. If lesbians want babies, they need to get themselves some sperm, just like other women.

This.

I don't think IVF should be free unless it's due to infertility, but I also think it's unfair to call reciprocal IVF 'deluxe' or 'not beneficial at all'. A baby in the womb is epigenetically affected by the woman carrying, and I'm sure most people on MN would agree it's a huge bonding experience.

You raise an important point about potential risks. I have read studies saying risks are similar, but peopls should be wary imo so far as these companies are influential & could be suppressing research.

Do you think gay adoption is wrong?

We know that pregnancy using donor eggs (eg carrying a pregnancy that the woman has no genetic link to) has a significant set of risks associated which impact both mother and child. This includes a higher chance of miscarriage, risks of high blood pressure developing in pregnancy, 3x chance of preeclampsia, higher chance of premature delivery and low birth weight, even in young and healthy women pregnant using donor eggs, and given this information there is growing evidence that use of donor eggs may have long term health effects for the gestating mother.

A speculated mechanism for these issues is that the immune incompatibilities/differences between the gestating mother and the donor eggs accentuate the maternal/fetal immune conflict of implantation and gestation during the pregnancy. This is only emerging through research now, as prior to IVF technology being available, there was no mechanism for the situation to occur in nature.

Given that the use of donor eggs creates significant health risks for the recipient mother and the child she is bearing, and the process of simulation and harvesting during donation of eggs comes with risk to the donating mother, it seems the height of selfish indulgence to engineer this complex situation which increases risks for both mothers and the child, for a perceived social benefit/experience of bonding when the egg donating mother would be able to carry the child herself without the added risk.

We should perhaps remember that human physiology is not 'plug and play'
(Edited for stray and errant commas)

Zombie thread

Thank you, this is a very important point. I think the fertility lobby have covered up many things.

I think it's unfair to say lesbians who use this are necessarily being 'the height of selfish indulgence'. They are if they know the risks. But There is a LOT of study etc stuff out there saying it's fine.

A parallel situation in straight couples is that there has been virtually zero discussion or study, as we pointed out on the recent gay male surrogacy thread, of the fact that a straight couple using a sperm donor are raising their child in a home w a biologically unrelated male, which we know in all other situations carries a higher risk of abuse.

And I look it up...this study has just been published. Reciprocal IVF is indeed more dangerous, it seems.

I have a lesbian friend who wants this, she's not selfish at all. She looked at a lot of studies and many were saying it was OK. I will have to break the news if she hasn't already seen this.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ivf-anglia-ruskin-university-university-of-leeds-nhs-b2820530.html

They sound an entitled pair. There is no right to have children and if so desperate why not adopt?
The Guardian's 'people with wombs' reminds me why I have stopped reading it.

Oh FFS, stop reviving Zombie threads @TheJoyOfWriting

Yes. Stop. Its annoying.