Should IVF be available to lesbians?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

And single women? Or should assisted conception only be for infertile women in heterosexual relationships?

I think you mean homophobic. Not homophonic.

This is actually a difficult question. IVF is about infertility. Having a partner of the same sex does not mean you are infertile but you will not be able to conceive because you are the same sex and conception requires partners (however brief) to be of opposite sexes. Do you give fertile people who cannot conceive because they are in a same-sex relationship IVF? The answer may well be 'no' because they do not meet the criteria 'infertile' or problems with 'infertility' because both women are fertile. It is the mirror image of gay men using a surrogate, renting a womb to have a baby. If you are unhappy with surrogacy in that (or any) situation then you would probably want at least to consider that a same-sex female couple, both fertile, should consider AID instead. If both females in the relationship are infertile - possible - then yes, IVF would be a solution - but what is the likelihood of that being the case when two people in the relationship have the biology to bear children? If only one is infertile, the other partner can use AID and this would be the solution.

Exploitation perhaps?

I don’t gaf about typos or half-missing sentences unless it means I am unable to understand what someone meant.

I don’t know about you, but I am using an iPad and the bastard thing keeps changing the word, even after I think it is correct. I imagine people are using phones or quickly typing while there is some other demand on their attention too.

What is important is that you don’t think someone means the opposite of what they intended or you really can’t tell what their key point is.

I actually want to understand what people are arguing.

The thing about ‘donation’ is that it is a gift, usually with no strings attached.

Organ donations are usually the result of tragedy, and live kidney or bone marrow donations does often mean rocking up with your own donor- a loved one who is willing to do that for you. As @CryptoFascistMadameCholet says, it is important it doesn’t lead to exploitation.

I don’t think receiving donations in any other context is ever framed as a ‘right’ is it? I think this (on a different mn thread) is the first time I have ever heard the receipt of donations being someone’s ‘right’.

You know what people are arguing: that lesbians have the same access to assisted conception as heterosexual women. Your sealioning is tiresome EndlessTea.

No one has their rights trampled over when lesbians conceive with medical help. Men are not being forced into barns and milked of their sperm so lesbians, single women and women in heterosexual relationships with infertile men can try to conceive.

The title of your thread though is should lesbians be entitled to IVF. That’s an entirely different thing from your most recent point ‘that lesbians [should] have the same access to assisted conception as heterosexual women.’ So you’ve shifted the goalposts, that happens in discussions, not usually a sign a of a good faith debater but it does happen. You’ve also now lumped all heterosexual women in together, disregarding the huge elephant in the room, a heterosexual woman with a male partner is not materially the same as a single heterosexual woman or a lesbian couple attempting to conceive a baby. You are determined to see that reality as homophobic when it isn’t.

You are right. I think the underlying question, and the title of this should have been:

Do women without a male partner have the right to expect insemination/IVF using a State sourced anonymous male donor on the NHS?

😂😂😂

I think you need to go back to school.

No one has their rights trampled over when lesbians conceive with medical help. Men are not being forced into barns and milked of their sperm so lesbians, single women and women in heterosexual relationships with infertile men can try to conceive.

What about the rights of the baby to know their genetic heritage? To know if they are predisposed to certain cancers? To not have to worry about incest in future relationships? If you think these things don’t matter, you might want to ponder on the success of companies offering DNA analysis. But somehow the rights of babies don’t seem to be considered.

I noticed that too. Very clear why some posters are so invested in certain topics.

I believe assisted conception procedures should be available equally, or not at all. I suppose the argument re infertile lesbians would often be a moot point. Heterosexual women may discover they are infertile after a long period of "trying " for a baby with a male partner unsuccessfully. Lesbians may never know this.

@FourInABedSit

So heterosexual woman has to try for 12 months before getting any tests or getting anywhere close to IVF.

Lesbian woman can bypass all that and get IVF straight away, despite there potentially not being anything wrong with her fertility.

How is that fair?

Two women or two men of the right age, having regular, unprotected sex are not on a level playing field with a straight couple in terms of potential to reproduce, neither are single men or women. The only ones who potentially have the chance to reproduce are the straight couple. That's not homophobic, it's just reality. Is it the job of the NHS to level that playing field?

Being same sex attracted (or being single) is not an illness, disease or disorder. That's what the NHS is for, treating illnesses, diseases and disorders. I'm not convinced NHS resources should be used on healthy people. The genie is out of the bottle and realistically if you can pay for it yourself, you can have it.

I think reproductive technology is an ethical minefield and I'm not really sure where I stand on the various methods/treatments.

I am very worried about lesbians and single women being used as a wedge to gain acceptance for surrogacy (which I believe to be abhorrent). If we accept that every person should be able to have their own children and it's an issue of equality, we are opening the door to surrogacy because gay male couples and single men don't have anywhere else for their foetuses to gestate except in the uterus of some third part, likely vulnerable and or poor, woman.

What about the rights of the baby to know their genetic heritage? To know if they are predisposed to certain cancers? To not have to worry about incest in future relationships? If you think these things don’t matter, you might want to ponder on the success of companies offering DNA analysis. But somehow the rights of babies don’t seem to be considered.

I quite agree with you. But this is a general issue with donor sperm and is not affected by the sexual orientation of the women being inseminated.

I am very worried about lesbians and single women being used as a wedge to gain acceptance for surrogacy (which I believe to be abhorrent).

That door has already been opened by rich, heterosexual, largely white couples wanting poor brown women to carry their DNA/babies. Start there. Not with lesbian women.

Yes, but not NHS funded. I don’t think IVF should be publicly funded for anyone.

I noticed that too. Very clear why some posters are so invested in certain topics

Oh yes. And it's not the only thread that belies prejudices either.

The nhs is for medical issues. Being unable to have a child for medical issues is an NHS issue.

being unable to have a child for any other reason is not a medical issue.

if you’re asking whether it ought to be available, then yes

Personally, I don't think the NHS should be funding IVF for anyone, given that it is not a life-limiting condition, when there are 2 year waiting lists for things such as knee & hip surgery (and many other complex surgeries), condemning many people to hugely diminished quality of life, and earlier mortality.

But I know this is a popular opinion!

Infertility is a bitch, but one learns to live with it.

But ....

If IVF is available via the NHS, then it should be available for any woman, EXCEPT that surrogacy is an evil practice which must remain illegal in the UK - and should be illegal even for those vultures (male, female, straight, gay) who go overseas for it.

It's a particularly nasty version of modern enslavement.

I think, once you’ve decided that surrogacy using donated sperm is available to infertile couples, there’s very little reason to deny the same to lesbian couples. Unless you simply have a problem with lesbians.

It’s not the same for gay couples and donated eggs because neither of them has a womb. Surrogacy is a very different thing because it really is using a woman as an incubator and, often, is just buying a baby. There are enormous risks involved in pregnancy.

There are ethical questions to consider about donated gametes generally, but I don’t think there’s any difference between using donated material because a man cannot produce sperm of sufficient quality/quantity or because the other partner cannot produce sperm at all.

That’s why this thread is misleading. This isn’t about sexual orientation, it’s about whether women without a male partner (or ‘known donor’) should be entitled to impregnation by anonymous State-sourced fathers.

Anonymous gamete ‘donation’, including in cases of infertility, is an ethical minefield which, I believe, weights the wishes of parents over the rights of the child unfairly. There are other issues too around potential coercion and poor quality of ‘donors’, which deserves its own thread, but I don’t think that is necessarily a feminist issue, more a children’s rights issue, so this forum might not be the right place.

I think the danger is in the language used around ‘rights’.

’Equal fertility rights’ does suggest that it is the job of the NHS to ‘level that playing field’.

And once you are down that road, of course men have the ‘right’ to have children via surrogate mothers.

I agree with that @EndlessTea

I do think it’s problematic that we have started to think of parenthood as a basic human right, regardless of biological reality. That kind of thinking has lots of implications - in lots of different areas of life.