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

SoRB:

>>Rather obviously, I don't have any right to withhold any of my taxes. What I was instead alluding to was my right to withdraw my support from any group advocating funding IVF, including the government. Withdrawing my support from the government, in terms of my actual rights, is limited to stopping voting for them and stopping doing anything else to help them that I might have been doing.


Well, of course. But is that any more profound than saying 'I disagree'? Hell - I can't even imagine a democratic society in which someone didn't disagree with something.

But actively limiting funding for IVF probably isn't on the top of many peoples's electoral priorities. Its down in the weeds and not really a Rights issue.

*However*...for those wanting treatment it maybe becomes so important as to near as dammit feel like a right. We're not talking the right to an expensive handbag.

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You just had to get in a testicle joke somewhere, didn't you?

I can see, and appreciate, both sides of the argument. I just think it is sad that people in a situation where they cannot conceive naturally might not take a step back and try to look at the bigger picture, rather than rush into the 'we must have a baby at all cost' scenario. Perhaps they do, but I suspect you are more likely to hear someone telling you about their IVF treatment than adoption/fostering. But that is just a personal view.

A very sensitive issue ('scuse the pun) and this 'right's' issue has and will open a can of worms.

Just a quick 'google' shows that in 2002 one cycle of IVF cost between £1500 and £2000, and one cycle of IUI with donor is anywhere from £250 to £1000, not including additional drugs etc. I suppose compared to cancer treatment it's not that expensive, but the success rates range from high 20%'s for under 35 to 11% for 40+. It's difficult to get an accurate comparison for, say, cancer treatment as there are many forms of cancer. So, is it value for money? Well, I imagine that any couple desperate to start a family would willingly pay that price, though I can understand that other taxpayers might think otherwise.

Also, apparently 95% of couples trying for a baby will naturally conceive within 18 months, so I suppose the total figure for couples seeking IVF would be small.

If lots and lots of money were required to preserve my sight, I would expect yous lot to pay it. I would also expect to pay for any of you - irrespective of whether you'd put into the system.

In what way is conception different? Neither sight nor children are essential to life, after all.

NOTE: I'm not saying there is no difference. I'm not saying there is a difference. I'm just asking a question.

OtherMonkey
>>I can see, and appreciate, both sides of the argument. I just think it is sad that people in a situation where they cannot conceive naturally might not take a step back and try to look at the bigger picture, rather than rush into the 'we must have a baby at all cost' scenario. Perhaps they do, but I suspect you are more likely to hear someone telling you about their IVF treatment than adoption/fostering. But that is just a personal view.


But then surely Adoption/Fostering and IVF are Apples and...er...Plums again?

Children most often become available for fostering or adoption when they are removed from their families by the State (barring a few orphans). The State must only intervene in family life when a) it has a pretty damn good reason to do so and b) it is confident that the care it provides will be better than that provided by the child's family. For this reason the State has to think very carefully before passing a child over to someone else and only does so after the utmost scrutiny. Fostering and Adoption are a long (and intrusive) business and are not for everyone.

IVF is different. Its just a helping hand for the traditional and more fun method of conception. Our working assumption, for better or worse, is that we are all equally able to parent, and hence the State does not interfere in the process.

Now obviously that is not to say that the State is obliged to help us conceive. My only point is that Parenting-with-state-involvement and Parenting-without-state-involvement are different beasts.

I'm not sure that rights talk is a very good way for a society to go about setting a positive agenda. In fact, rights talk in general is quite incoherent because rights are stated as if they were absolute but of course they have to be balanced against each other and it's not logically possible to combine them all in every situation. To me this is a recipe for muddles and confusion, and that gets worse the more and more things we include as rights. I can see how it got started, as a set of minimum agreed commitments, and actually despite the problems with them maybe they have their place in that role. And I can see how they got extended - once you've got the idea of rights in place, it's an easy way for campaigners and certain sorts of politicians to get their ideas accepted and codified into institutional behaviour, which gives them a sort of durability they might not otherwise have. But this extension doesn't seem like a good thing - it muddies the concept too much. It's not enough to do things that are right, you have to do them in the right way too, or it'll eventually backfire.

I can see what your'e saying. But I don't think it's Rights as such that are the issue here. Its more that we don't take a sufficiently proactive approach in explaining what they are, how they affect us, why we have them...and what happened before we had them. Etc.

See previous comment about Unicef's positive agenda on rights.

Re the single woman in the OP. By granting her IVF on the NHS to satisfy her right to have a baby and her right to not be discriminated against by the state, are we not funding a lifestyle choice?

You could put it that way. But I suggest you're positing a false dichotomy.

Let's hypothesise an operation that might allow someone to walk after a spinal injury. But as with all procedures it has risks and might limit their lower body function further, say causing incontinence. So, naturally, the patient has a free choice.

Walking? Wheelchair bound but continent? Wheelchair bound and incontinent?

Are these lifestyle choices? If the patient has a choice about their future lifestyle?

Now, OK - I've picked a silly and provocative example. But is there any objective reason why the fulfillment of some bodily functions (walking; continence) are Important Medical Matters while another (fertility) is a Lifestyle Choice?

I don't have an answer either way, myself. I just don't think Lifestyle Choice is a useful concept here.

SUPPLEMENTARY:

Say a woman requires surgery to correct a reproductive abnormality in order to conceive. How do we feel about funding that?

Or how about a man with an inconveniently tight foreskin?

If I were in a feisty mood, I might suggest that society is still not a level playing feild between men and women. There is still an inequality in pay, for example, not entirely accounted for by women taking time off to have kids. And you can't tell me no employer has looked at a woman in her early thirties in an interview, thought 'maternity leave!' and given the job to another candidate.

So given that this affects both women with kids and those without, I could suggest that the least society could do for a woman who wants to enter into the condition which has already had a negative impact on her life is fund a few ivf cycles.

I believe ivf is more like 7000 gbp these days.

Plus, swl, by funding whoosits lung cancer treatment after 30 years of his smoking 60 a day, are we not funding a lifestyle choice? Add more examples at will.

Hangliding accidents?

Car ownership, even?

And monkeyS, I can assure you that ivf, or indeed any fertility treatment isn't something people enter into lightly, or without considering the bigger picture. It is a most unpleasant proceedure physically. You'd be nuts to do it unless you felt there was no alternative frankly.

Easier for men, mind. They just give you a glass beaker and a few mucky books.

The problem with talking about people having 'rights' is the initial concept is fundamentally flawed. None of us have any 'rights' to anything. We have privileges given to us by the society we live in. If the society in the part of the world we live allows us to have IVF as an option then we are privileged to be given that option. If we live in a society that doesn't allow IVF then we don't have the option. It's a simple as that. We don't have a right to IVF we have a privilege that allows it. If we scrapped the human rights act and replaced it with a human privilege act people might be a bit more reasonable regarding what they are trying to get and might be a little less arrogant about it too.

>>The problem with talking about people having 'rights' is the initial concept is fundamentally flawed. None of us have any 'rights' to anything. We have privileges given to us by the society we live in.

I couldn't disagree more. We have rights that we have collectively asserted over time, sometimes in the face of societal opposition. Look at the ECHR or HRA and tell me which of the specific rights are in the gift of society.

(Link to make it easier. Rights summarised as bullet points: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/governmentcitizensandrights/yourrightsandresponsibilities/dg_4002951)

Granted, I agree that this IVF issue is not really about Rights in the same sense.

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I fully understand, and apologise if my post came across in any other way. I'd imagine the whole procedure is intrusive.

Lets go with the idea of Fertility as a Lifestyle Choice (I disagree...but for the sake of argument).

So far we have only looked at one side of the equation. We also spend an awful lot of money supporting the lifestyle choice *not* to have children. Contraceptive pills, IUDs...you can even pop into your local health centre and pick up a massive bag of condoms to save you having to shell out at Boots. All free and completely unrationed.

Why...I myself once had a man slit open my scrotum with a scalpel, stick is finger in the bloody, gaping wound (talk about unexpected item in the bagging area!) and didn't have to pay a penny for the privilege, Well - except for the bag of frozen peas I had to sit on afterwards. All rather untraumatic, incidentally. OK, so I wouldn't have it done *every* day, but I recommend it to anyone.

Now I don't know how spending on all this compares with IVF. The point is...should we be funding the lifestyle choice of issue-free sex at all?

Straw man. Contraception is neither a lifestyle choice or a right. It's a social health issue. The cost of not providing contraception is higher than providing it.

I always thought that contraception was on offer not only to avoid issue but to avoid illness

>>The cost of not providing contraception is higher than providing it.

But that depends on what you include in the cost-benefit analysis, surely? Is it really possible that children have no benefit? Even if we discount the 'soft' benefits that are hard to pin a monetary value on (broadly, happiness), what about their contribution to future economic growth? Or what is the monetary value of the care provided by children to their elderly parents? etc. etc.

I'm not *entirely* convinced that it's a straw man. But if it is... the trite slogan 'Lifestyle Choice' certainly is. Its not on the par with golf or D'n'D. Its something humans do, and as damned near a universal as you can get.