h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Should IVF treatment be available on the NHS?

Given the stretched resources of the NHS and the multiple stories of Health Trusts deciding which drugs they can afford to prescribe, is it right that non-essential treatment such as IVF be available?

My sister had IVF, which means I have a fantastic nephew who is a real joy. The happiness he has brought cannot be measured in financial terms. But I had a friend with MS, whose last years were excruciatingly painful because the local Health Trust refused to prescribe effective medication on grounds of cost.

Swings & roundabouts perhaps?

I'm inclined to say no - but then I conceived naturally and very easily.

I'm also inclined to say no, but then I'm not much interested in kids.

More practically, is there measurable psychological damage to those who can't have children? Multiply that by cost per treatment/success rate of IVF. How does it compare to the other treatments the NHS is providing?

But I'm still thinking, wouldn't it be better if they adopted?

Can it be proved that the NHS is funding what little IVF it offers by directly taking money AWAY from other treatment funds for other illnesses?

Also, most people pay for their own IVF, as the NHS rules for who gets or does not get it are very cleverly excluding those for whom it would be most likely to work - I can't have it because I am too young - I'm only 32, but by the time I'm nearly 40 and allowed it, it'll be less likely to work as my reproductive bits will be approaching menopause. I am also too fat to be allowed it, but quite a lot of women are too thin as well, despite the fact IVF works very well according to international figures on women of my weight and on slimmer (not skeletal) women. And if I could get it, which I can't, I would only allowed one go, despite the fact it takes an otherwise fairly healthy healthy woman three goes on average to conceive. The whole IVF - unnecessary and expensive? debate is a complete red herring as so damn few woman get to have it on the NHS in the first place.

And it's all very well 'people' saying it's self-indulgent and unnecessary to have IVF. 'People' also spend a lot of time telling childless women they are unnatural and selfish and will regret it when they are older. Childless women who can't conceive naturally are rather stuffed, aren't they? Selfish and unnatural whatever they try to do.

And no, there are not enough children to adopt to 'go round', and no, you can't adopt easily if you are over 35. So again, stuffed. Try try try for years, aren't allowed medical help, are now too old to adopt, and now everyone is jeering at you for being unntaural and selfish for having failed at something you never had a damn chance of doing on your own in the first place.

Should the NHS provide IVF? I don't know. I agree there are conditions that need far more money far more urgently. If there is only so much money coming in, they should get first dibs. But couldn't there be more money? Wouldn't it be better spent on creating babies than on, say, redundant nuclear missile delivery systems?

I'm also inclined to say no, but then again I'm not relaly ever likely to have, or to want children of my own....

But, yes, it should be funded for those who need it/want it. This idea that there is only so much money is laughable every time it is raised in relation to the NHS, schools, or whatever 'home' service, we're talking about. Whilst there is no problem to spend limitless moneys on waging wars in far off distant places, or no lack of money when it comes to building more weapons of mass destruction visa ve the nuclear subs/trident replacements. One day maybe a sufficiently large enough portion of the population of the UK will notice that we're an incredibably rich nation, and that any claims of insufficient funds for NHS/school etc., is merely political deception of the kind we should be all too famuliar with after the past decade of lies incompetancies and deception.

It would appear that if the information in this article wasn't misleading and is still broadly reflected in the NHS that very little in resources expended on this by the NHS.

I think a better reason against it is the question of what purpose is served in assisting the infertile to create infertile children with increased risk other gene related health problem and the use of science with a low hit rate.

I think a wasted resources topic would be why are giving smokers nicotine patches and gum on the NHS when tax rises or an outright ban on the substance would be more effective at "curing" their "illness".

The missing link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/medical_notes/308662.stm

Sho, can you provide a link supporting that statement?

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

Why are so many people concerned about Pete Sake?

Agapanthus, I honestly dot mean to be rude but peolpe do tend to take it that way. So yo might not what to read what follows.

Why all the hyperbole? Not "everyone" condsiders a childless woman to be a freak of nature or to be unfullfiled as a woman. It may feel like that for you but honestly it is only your feelings. Despite what people may tell you you dont have a right to children or even a duty to have them. If you want children in your life as a childless person its not that difficult. Blimey, I even get given relatively generous amounts of money for what amounts to shouting at other peoples' children. If you were interested you could look into short of long term fostering where your (not so) advanced years would be a positive qualification and not a hinderence *and* they even give you money for it in a lot of cases.

"The whole IVF - unnecessary and expensive? debate is a complete red herring as so damn few woman get to have it on the NHS in the first place.

I suppose it depends what you consider to be expensive and its certainly not necesary from where Im sitting lets remember children to me are a way of making money I have a vested interest in there being more of the little bleeders. In global terms the population is expanding in a way that makes it difficult for us to cope with the impact. So in that sense alone more babies just isnt what we need right now.

Ive said it before and nothing Ive seen since has changed my mind. To all those people having children on our behalf thanks but not thanks just rest your loins a bit please.

Despite what you may "feel" Blickybadger, not "everyone" is havimng children thinks they're doing on "your" behalf. I suspect the figures may in fact be very close to 0.

I dont "feel" that people, not just women are having babies for the rest of us because they tell me.

On other threads ive seen people saying how its not selfish to want a family if this is the case then the obvious conclusion that follows is that they are doing it for other people.

There are those who have children for their partners sake and those who do it to please other family members but aside from the arguing the toss about peoples' inner intetions which can be an exercise in chasing ones tail there are without doubt a number of surrogate mothers willing to conceive and give birth to babies for the benefit of others.

That puts the number above 0.

I've certainly seen a fair few posts on here arguing that having children is analagous to a job or socially beneficial. I don't want to get into to what extent that may be true, but people are certainly making such claims.

The very (silly) idea that a woman who chooses not to have children is 'selfish' is clearly an example of such a claim, and one I shall vehemently oppose if I ever encounter it.

The childless versus parents argument has been run through enough that I hope to skirt around it here though...

Blicky is entitled to his view on this but he cannot possibly understand how someone like Agapanthus feels.
I know what it took her to write about this - and I wish Blicky had been a bit kinder in his response.

I sympathise with Agapanthus, and I honour her courage in writing about her experience. I have family members who have the same problem as she does, and IVF on the health department here is just as tightly restricted. What public attempts are funded, tend to go to not married couples, but gay would-be-parents who use "surrogates", people who are older than the family members I am talking about (who have little chance of success for the reasons she has mentioned....)

Vicky

Ag ...

I think perhaps blicky was 'writing from the hip', if you know what I mean, and maybe hadn't realised all that you were saying. I can't imagine him ever being hurtful on purpose, especially considering the circumstances, and I'm sure he'll clear up this misunderstanding in due course.

I think you're right that this whole argument is largely a moot point as most people don't get the choice anyhow.

Meanwhile, I've never felt like society was somehow looking down on me for being a 50-year-old woman with no children. Quite possibly because society knows exactly what I'd do to them if they dared...

az

The story that made me think about this:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20070511/tuk-nhs-babies-for-addict-defended-6323e80.html

"Glasgow couple Nicola McCall, 28, and Shane Curran, 31, were given three courses of Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI) on the NHS despite their dependence on the heroin substitute methadone."

Bouncy, Im not going to dispute that looking after children is an arduous and demanding role and should be respectd as such. Only a fool woud suggest that without the presence of self aware artificial intelligence to carry things on in some shape or the discovery of eternal life that not producing future generations be the end of society.

What I disputed is that "everyone" metaphorically speaking gets on womens' backs about their duty to do this, I for one dont. Pointing out the truth seems to have bothered several people.


TeuchterIts true I dont know exactly how Agapnathius feels and I might never understand. Which is a shame but that is the nature of humanity is it not. I can empathise with anyone who wants a fairly ordinary thing that other people can enjoy but you just cant. However im not sympathetic baout non essential treatments not being freely available to all at the tax payers expense especially as the benefit to everyone else paying for it isnt guranteed in the least.

I wasnt beliberatley unkind and i was trying to be very nuetral i could have used very different words i chose not to, because as i said it was not my intentino to upset. having said that i reserve the right to say things i believe even if others dont like them. *anyone* concerned for Agapanthus because of what is in the offending post was and still is free to hit the yikes button.


Hi Della, a sly unfounded dig at homosexuals and how they are ruining everything for decent heterosexuals. Dont you go changing will you


az, same to you, for very differnt reasons

If ever there was a treatment that should only be available to those prepared to pay for it, it's IVF.

A few observations:

1. Darwinism in action. If you can't have kids, you shouldn't be having kids. That's the universe giving you a hint - take it.

2. If it's just one of the couple who's got a problem, that's just another in a long line of arguments against monogamy. (Old hobby horse...)

3. IVF should be VERY expensive, to deter people who might merely sell their house to get it.

I say all the above as someone with no parental urges whatsoever, baffled and slightly repulsed by and contemptuous of people whose existence begins to revolve around their attempts to conceive a child.

SoRB