UK & World News
- 17 February 2013, 5:59
More IVF For Gay Couples And Older Women
Older women and more gay couples may get greater access to IVF treatment on the NHS under new guidelines.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is expected to make the recommendations in its report next week.
Currently, women over 40 years old are not eligible to NHS funded fertility treatment and have to pay privately, which can cost between £6,000 and £8,000 per cycle.
Figures from the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority show one in seven couples in the UK struggle to conceive and every year around 48,000 women have IVF.
The possibility that gay couples may get greater access to treatment is being welcomed by James Taylor from campaign group, Stonewall.
He told Sky News: "In the last ten years we've seen greater legal protections for same sex couples, which Stonewall fought hard to achieve, and we hope they're reflected in the new guidelines.
"We've seen a greater number of lesbians go through IVF treatment and start families and we hope the new NICE guidance really recognises the different families that do exist at the moment."
But, Anthony Ozimic from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children expressed his organisation's opposition.
He said: "This decision ignores biology in the face of politically correct social engineering.
"Same sex couples do not have fertility problems, they have chosen a naturally non-fertile lifestyle, and we shouldn't be spending millions of pounds of taxpayers money on fertility procedures for people who do not have fertility problems."
NICE has not confirmed whether these changes will definitely be included in the updated guidelines to be be released on Wednesday.
The recommendations are influenced by medical advances and changing social attitudes but do not have to consider the NHS's need to save billions of pounds.
If the guidelines do change, it will be local NHS trusts that decide whether to fund them.
However, a spokesperson from The Department of Health said: "We believe that all PCTs - and in the future, Clinical Commissioning Groups - should take account of National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for fertility treatment."
what do you think?
Michael Hawkins
Gray men - IVF - that should be interesting
krafty81
All wrong
johnny_1234
disgusting waste of nhs money just to appease the pc brigade. this will probably be camerons next big project.
shaun spencer
Gaye couples certainly seem to be having their cake and eating it .and even asking for more.
david conway
IIVF for ga y couples should not be taxpayer funded. It's all in the name of political correctness. This treatment is for couples having problems not to facilitate same sex couples to have babies
Diane Rogers
I know some won't like this, but i'm not sure if the NHS should fund any IVF, it was bought in to help sick people not being able to have children is not being ill. Having children is a gift not a right
davenlesley
Diane. Agree completely. At a time when money is tight and choices are having to be made regarding seriously ill people offering IVF treatment should be a very low priority. Nobody ever died of not having a kid
Clifford Loveland
Nature's way of thinning the population is to serve some unfortunates with infertility. We have enough children being born without the need for IVF, particularly when it comes to the g-ay folk who should have no access to this on the HHS.
Gary Wrightson
Why can't they foster or adopt or surely one of them would have a close friend that could be a doner , at least that would save us tax payers more money.
t.bulgin
The argument is "why should ga y couples be denied the right to have children ?" I'm really sorry If this is offensive but, I just do not understand any kind of logic being attached to that statement. My understanding is that a man and a women are required to provide the right circumstanses to say that "it is their right" You might as well say that every person has a right to be married and demand that the tax payer fun ds forced marriages for all the ugly, unsociable or unhygenic people who would not normally stand a chance of getting a partner.
George Clement
You can imagine the crackpots in charge refusing free treatment to older women but giving it to gray couples under 40. I can understand a woman of forty who has always wanted to be a mother getting the treatment but the others???????????????
George Clement
are my human rights abused I have just had to remove the word g. a.. y.. but the same word is in the report above
Robert Hare
This comment has been removed for violations of our Terms and Conditions.
DeadUniqueGamer
sorry but i dont think women over 40 shoud have it free either, their choice to wait...
fish41
Twisted and selfish. I want a baby but i am not going to tell you who your father was.
gengisken1227
Whats the betting this stems from an EU directive, just like gray marriage did, although our LibLabCon elected representatives won't tell us the truth that they are impotently following orders from across the channel.
d and d Phillips
Well siad Ken. The Equality Brigade are being led to Utopia by the nose, unwittingly, by liars and deceivers.
d and d Phillips
Ah, my Daddy, the man in the sock!
brian foster
What next we ask ourselves,there are 13 replies posted and ALL are apposed to this added expence for the NHS. It is yet another Camaroon project to advance his courtship for the G.A.Y.vote. Looking at the 13 comments here he has just loss 13 votes and I suggest many thousands more. Her could not run a bath.
Valerie Wood
As an NHS worker I just worry how this expenditure will affect other much more necessary treatments. Money does not grow on trees in the NHS
davenlesley
Exactly Val. How many cancer patients or other seriously ill people will be denied treatment or drugs because the money has been spent helping gayz or over 40's have kids
adam
I personally think that IVF should not be funded by the NHS for anybody. That is one of the reasons why the NHS is so stretched,constantly paying for things that are just not absolutely necessary. The NHS should be there to keep us fit and able to go about our lives,not to take care of every possible ailment or physical deficiency. If you cannot concieve naturally then either pay out of your own money for IVF or adopt,stop asking the state(the rest of us) to take care of things.
davenlesley
Adam. Agreed. I get sick of hearing that it is a womans right to have a child. It is not ! It is a privelege and one which nature denies to some.
shirley sutton
If you want to save the nhs money stop everyone coming in for Europe getting treatment them going home again
berni stewart
A complete and utter waste of money and resources
davenlesley
There are thousands of children in care homes in this country and surely we should be finding loving homes for this "surplus" before spending scarce NHS money on IVF. The time for reform and simplification of the adoption system is long overdue but then that would mean curbing the powers of the Social Services Stasi
arthur ruddock
the nhs can t look after the patients they ve got..why put money into making more?
Diane Rogers
4:26pm on 16/2/2013
Thought the NHS was short of money. Surely this is not a necessity
Andrea Hill
6:55pm on 16/2/2013
what next, this is ridiculous.
Steve Marshall
9:49pm on 16/2/2013
Your right Diane this is not a necessity, I would bring in free dental care before same sex ivf treatment, I have no problem with ivf for older or same sex as long as it's not funded by tax payers money.
shirley sutton
10:06pm on 16/2/2013
And wait til all our European cousins come over for treatment!