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kangeikoFeministing had some comments on IVF restrictions being introduced in Britain, which was automatically labelled as a step backwards in women's rights. This makes no sense to me, and it is obvious that the person writing the initial post had little understanding of what IVF involves, or what the restrictions would mean. This week's Economist had a very interesting article, with which I agree a lot more. It points out several things (which I've expanded somewhat):
Firstly, in the UK, IVF is already legsilated, preventing the implantation of more than two embryos at a time unless the doctor deems the woman to have a very slim chance of conceiving. If it's likely that one embryo will take, why risk multiple births? However, that number was reduced from three to two at a time, and the proposal would reduce the standard number of embryos implanted in women under the age of 40 to 1 - unless she has a low chance of the embryo 'taking'.
Secondly, talking about lowering the number of multiple births as taking away choices from women is ridiculous. A multiple birth increases the risk to both mother and baby with no obvious benefit. Yes, she'll have two babies instead of one - but the chances of both babies, and the mother, suffering damage or even dying, is greatly increased. Given the choice, women would choose to have one healthy baby that they will enjoy carrying, rather than two sickly babies that may not survive. And what about the risk to the mother? Even if it's only twisn rather than five or six infants, greater risk of blood pressure trouble, diabetes or heart disease are just some of the risks the mother will face.
Additionally, this will not affect women who have little chance at conception, as they will be able to have two embryos implanted. It will simply stop multiple embryo implantation as a matter of rote. However, the efficacy of this procedure is dependent upon the number of attempts. In Sweden, they have completed this trade-off in a successful manner.
There are two issues we must consider that stem from this, rather than the perceived lack of choice for women:
1) the NHS will only cover up to three IVF attempts, and it varies by region. Many women only get one attempt, hence the drive for multiple embryos. Increasing the attempts but lowering the number of embryos is safer for the woman and the baby, but more expensive.
2) however, caring for premature infants is incredibly costly. In the long-run, increasing the number of IVF attempts while lowering the risk of multiple births will ultimately result in a smaller drain on scarce NHS resources.
All of the above, however, ignores one major point (as does the initial article - shame on so-called 'feminists' for not even considering it!): what is the role of IVF in today's society and how does it relate to feminism?
IVF is a procedure designed to correct a perceived lack in women - it helps them overcome their reproductive shortcomings. Let's read that again: a woman who does not conceive a child with a specific man has a shortcoming. Women's fertility is one of the most complicated and little-known human functions. A woman could be perfectly healthy and ovulating just fine, and yet still not become pregnant. The reason is not that she has fertility issues, but that she might not necessarily be biologically compatible with the man she wants to have a child with. She could sleep with someone else just the once, and instantly fall pregnant. It's not a question of fertility, but a question of biological compatibility.
Yet this is not something that IVF takes into account. It will force the woman's body to accept the child by pumping her full of drugs that seriously affect her mental and physical health. And all because of a perceived shortcoming on her part. After all, if the man is producing sperm, it must be the woman's fault. Newspapers are peppered with instances of women having 'miracle' babies where nature has failed - because a woman's 'natural' place is, it appears, barefoot and pregnant with her husband's baby. Never mind that she's had to turn herself into a pharmacy in the mean time. Never mind that there is a large chance that her body, and that of the baby, will suffer damage. No. Instead of a sperm donation, having someone else's child or adopting, she will have her husband's baby. And succeed at being a woman.
Now, I myself want a child one day. I do not, however, think that I will resort to IVF unless it is the very last option, as there are simply more appealing alternatives out there. Parenthood is not defined by genes, despite what fertility doctors would like us to believe. Nor is restricting the abuses of the 'fertility' business as it aims to fulfil society's demands for babies necessarily anything other than doctors attempting to protect their patients.
Firstly, in the UK, IVF is already legsilated, preventing the implantation of more than two embryos at a time unless the doctor deems the woman to have a very slim chance of conceiving. If it's likely that one embryo will take, why risk multiple births? However, that number was reduced from three to two at a time, and the proposal would reduce the standard number of embryos implanted in women under the age of 40 to 1 - unless she has a low chance of the embryo 'taking'.
Secondly, talking about lowering the number of multiple births as taking away choices from women is ridiculous. A multiple birth increases the risk to both mother and baby with no obvious benefit. Yes, she'll have two babies instead of one - but the chances of both babies, and the mother, suffering damage or even dying, is greatly increased. Given the choice, women would choose to have one healthy baby that they will enjoy carrying, rather than two sickly babies that may not survive. And what about the risk to the mother? Even if it's only twisn rather than five or six infants, greater risk of blood pressure trouble, diabetes or heart disease are just some of the risks the mother will face.
Additionally, this will not affect women who have little chance at conception, as they will be able to have two embryos implanted. It will simply stop multiple embryo implantation as a matter of rote. However, the efficacy of this procedure is dependent upon the number of attempts. In Sweden, they have completed this trade-off in a successful manner.
There are two issues we must consider that stem from this, rather than the perceived lack of choice for women:
1) the NHS will only cover up to three IVF attempts, and it varies by region. Many women only get one attempt, hence the drive for multiple embryos. Increasing the attempts but lowering the number of embryos is safer for the woman and the baby, but more expensive.
2) however, caring for premature infants is incredibly costly. In the long-run, increasing the number of IVF attempts while lowering the risk of multiple births will ultimately result in a smaller drain on scarce NHS resources.
All of the above, however, ignores one major point (as does the initial article - shame on so-called 'feminists' for not even considering it!): what is the role of IVF in today's society and how does it relate to feminism?
IVF is a procedure designed to correct a perceived lack in women - it helps them overcome their reproductive shortcomings. Let's read that again: a woman who does not conceive a child with a specific man has a shortcoming. Women's fertility is one of the most complicated and little-known human functions. A woman could be perfectly healthy and ovulating just fine, and yet still not become pregnant. The reason is not that she has fertility issues, but that she might not necessarily be biologically compatible with the man she wants to have a child with. She could sleep with someone else just the once, and instantly fall pregnant. It's not a question of fertility, but a question of biological compatibility.
Yet this is not something that IVF takes into account. It will force the woman's body to accept the child by pumping her full of drugs that seriously affect her mental and physical health. And all because of a perceived shortcoming on her part. After all, if the man is producing sperm, it must be the woman's fault. Newspapers are peppered with instances of women having 'miracle' babies where nature has failed - because a woman's 'natural' place is, it appears, barefoot and pregnant with her husband's baby. Never mind that she's had to turn herself into a pharmacy in the mean time. Never mind that there is a large chance that her body, and that of the baby, will suffer damage. No. Instead of a sperm donation, having someone else's child or adopting, she will have her husband's baby. And succeed at being a woman.
Now, I myself want a child one day. I do not, however, think that I will resort to IVF unless it is the very last option, as there are simply more appealing alternatives out there. Parenthood is not defined by genes, despite what fertility doctors would like us to believe. Nor is restricting the abuses of the 'fertility' business as it aims to fulfil society's demands for babies necessarily anything other than doctors attempting to protect their patients.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 07:16 pm (UTC)Consider ADOPTION, people. It is healthier and more just.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-07 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 10:15 am (UTC)Although I do actually feel that a woman's main role in life is to have babies (I just see that as hugely empowering rather than something pathetic) but I think men like feeling as if they're somehow in control of the process.
In fact, my theory is that the majority of known human history can be explained quite simply as the male gender's desperately jealous attempts to wrest control of the process of the "creation" of life away from the female gender and hog the glory of it for themselves.
The battles of the sexes, in my understanding, isn't really about money or jobs... that's patriarchal misdirection which forces us to think with their mindset and not create our own radically new one. Adoption of a child and loving it even though it doesn't contain your own genes is incredibly radical as a concept in our current society as it demonstrates an implicit equality of humanity that men have fought a lot of wars against. Women appear to be happy to nurture any life - even if it hasn't sprung directly from their body or culture - whereas, if the man has no role in the creation of his "own" child, then he has played no "creator god" role and that seems to be an issue for them. Perhaps this has an evolutionary basis, since a woman knows that she is the mother of her child, whilst a man can never really be 100% positive unless he controls the mother - the means of production - absolutely.
The male mindset (historically) appears to be that whoever controls the process is the one considered closest to being the creator, to being a "god" and it is them who has the ultimate power over the future of our species. I just get this feeling that everything boils down to men trying to understand and control life itself and here we woman are, we just do it. Inside our bodies it just happens! If we are left to choose our own partners and make our own decisions about our bodies, then we control life itself. We are as gods... or rather, goddesses. Stuff "penis envy". ;)
Thank heavens that issues like not having enough money to fund it get in the way a lot of the time.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-29 01:18 pm (UTC)Hmm, I'd disagree with that, on the basis that:
- I don't believe that there is a single entity that you can call 'woman', which indicates that if 'woman' does not exist as a fixed definition, she cannot have a main role in life.
- Even if we ignore the above, and assume that there is a neat definition of woman, if we say that woman's main role in life is X (having babies, working, setting fire to bits of paper), than the people who self-identify as 'woman' but who do not do these things are being excluded. Which doesn't seem very fair to me.
- there is no geographical or social constant that dictates this. Even if 'women' were a homogenous entity, there is a great deal of difference in terms of age, background, beliefs, etc. Is someone past menopause no longer a woman? Is a girl simply a proto-woman? And what about people whose beliefs do not allow them to have children, e.g. nuns?
- Moreover, the people who tend to define 'womanhood' and what woman's role is tend to be rich white men, which always gives me a headache.
I'd argue, instead, that having and raising babies is an important social function, which takes a great deal of input from the parents and from society. Unfortunately, we have not measured the amount of input from the parents (good manners, diligent work, respect for elders, respect for the law etc), merely the input from society (the cost of schooling, child allowances etc). What's happening is that we are making ever-greater demands on the time of mothers - they need to work, otherwise they are vilified by the media. They also need to clean and cook, because studies show that men in the UK will spend their extra time down the pub, rather than helping with household chores. The amount of time being spent with children is diminishing, and this is, once again, being portrayed as the mother's fault. When a child goes crazy and shoots up his school, no one blames his father. Everyone looks at his mother, criticising the level of supervision and the amount of attention she gave the child. What we need is to acknowledge the huge amounts of human capital that women invest in their offspring, and to provide and support and incentives for both parents to spend more time with their children.
This party political broadcast was brought to you by, yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea.
In fact, my theory is that the majority of known human history can be explained quite simply as the male gender's desperately jealous attempts to wrest control of the process of the "creation" of life away from the female gender and hog the glory of it for themselves.
You do raise some good points, but I'm from a postmodern background, I'm afraid, which means that I'd predisposed towards disagreeing. :) I don't agree that IVF is the product of 'men' - again, no single homogenous group, but a large number of individuals - wanting to 'hog the glory' of creating life; rather, I believe that IVF is the product two social pushes: that a 'family unit' is incomplete unless it has children, and that any children born need to be legitimate. The media reviles single mothers and the law has long discriminated against people cohabiting rather than being married; children born out of wedlock often face legal and social challenges. Moreover, a couple is not deemed a 'family' until they've had kids. As you said above - if a woman's role is to have children, she has failed her husband in not creating a family. Mind you, this 'creation' has to be using his sperm, to ensure that the resulting child is legitimate in the eyes of the law and of society. Think of the scandal when a guy discovers that the child he has raised is not genetically his! You can love that child just as much as before finding out, but in the eyes of society, you are both disgraced. IVF is another means of enforcing these two Victorian values on the populace.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 01:07 pm (UTC)I've fallen upon your essay by chance, looking for statistics in IVF and as I've just failed my first IVF attempt I'd like to react to some points.
First the one for which my reaction is the less rational, but the most heartfelt I think.
Parenthood is not defined by genes, despite what fertility doctors would like us to believe.
See, I'm so lucky in living in a country (France) where the state insurance covers 4 ivf attempts, where adopting takes years and years just to get an agreement. So. I had an IVF, I'll have a thawed embryo transfer next and then if it doesn't work another attempt at ivf and up to four. It has nothing to do with genes. I have a 50% probability that any son of mine would be colour-blind, and I'm becoming progressively deaf as my father and his mother were before me. As for my husband's genes, I think he doesn't care either, and while it's true that I would enjoy finding some resemblance between him and a child (because I love him) I really don't care about his genes either.
So what?
Well, I want to bring this hypothetical child to life from the beginning. I want to feel it grow in my body, I want to know it from birth. I think I could give love to an adopted child, but I'm not completely sure I could free myself from being jealous of the woman who felt it grow and saw it first and I know I'll miss strongly all I don't know of those first moments.
So I know what I want to try first and that if it doesn't work I'll have some work to do to be able to welcome an adopted child.
As for the rest...
I don't think doctors are necessarily the ones to insist on a large number of embryo. At least in France, where fertility clinics are not subjected to so much pressure about statistics, patients are the ones to require multiple embryo transfers and doctors the ones to aim for healthy pregnancies. There are even some clinics that have a strict one-blastocycst transfer policy. What I see is a lot of women on forums dreaming of twins because after so long without a child having two feels like a miracle and some who don't understand how dangerous a triplet pregnancy is.
But... Statistics do show that on average, pregnancy rates rise with the number of transferred embryo up to three. Pregnancy statistics also show that the risk of late miscarriage and birth problems is slightly higher with twins, but rises tremendously in triplet pregnancies. Honestly, knowing that, and knowing that my husband and I would do better with one than with two, I was willing to chance the twin pregnancy. For me the higher pregnancy rate and the 20% of twin pregnancies balance the slightly elevated risk.
Transferring ONE embryo does lower the pregnancy rates, unless you are lucky enough to have got several embryos that weren't immediately transferred and went on dividing for 5 days until the blastocyst stage. Then you have nearly a 50% chance of becoming pregnant whatever the embryo number, which is great. A friend of mine had this tried, got embryos but her embryos stopped dividing. Those might have survived in the uterus which is after all a better environment.
If you were beginning an IVF after years of infertility, many other failures with lighter treatments, knowing that the number of attempts is only four (or worse, that each costs so much), would you be strong enough to opt for a single embryo transfer? There's (from memory) an average 15% implantation rate and a 25% pregnancy rate. How would you feel knowing that? And if you were the doctor, would you be strong enough to go for the one embryo option knowing of all your patients' hopes?
And a last thing
however, caring for premature infants is incredibly costly.
Yes, it is. As are caring for cancer patients, or for old people and for fertility treatment as a whole.
I might be a feminist, but I'm not differentiating between men and women when I say that having a public health system that allows us all to access expensive treatments is one of the basic requirement of a developped country. Whatever the responsibility of the patients in their condition.
Well, I hope I didn't anoy you to much with my outburst! I'm sorry it fell on you... Also, I sincerely wish that you'll never have to make these kind of choices.