Scottish health boards fund IVF for lesbians

LESBIANS and single women are receiving IVF and other fertility treatments on the NHS in Scotland despite a nationwide shortage of sperm donors.

A Scotland on Sunday investigation has revealed that three health boards are paying up to £3,000 per treatment for lesbians and single women who want babies to have artificial insemination.

Four other boards have treated or referred women who paid for the fertility procedures themselves.

The revelation has been welcomed by gay rights campaigners but has angered infertility support groups, who fear healthy gay couples are harming the chances of parenthood for heterosexual couples with fertility problems.

Sperm shortages and long waiting lists for IVF mean some couples must already wait up to five years for treatment.

It has also emerged that Scotland currently has just one active sperm donor, following changes in the law that removed the right to anonymity.

Scottish health boards revealed their fertility polices relating to gay couples and single women following a Freedom of Information request by this newspaper.

NHS Forth Valley admitted it had funded IVF for one lesbian couple after a failed attempt at donor insemination.

NHS Lothian also admitted treating lesbian couples but has refused to disclose how many. NHS Fife said it would refer same-sex couples and single women for NHS treatment, but has not had any requests so far.

Last night, Dr David McQueen, a consultant gynaecologist at NHS Forth Valley, said it was the first time a same-sex couple had been given fertility treatment on the NHS in his area.

A number of other gay couples and single women have also been allowed to have the treatment by paying for the procedure themselves.

Last year, six single women and three lesbian couples went for IVF or donor insemination privately at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, and NHS Highland referred one lesbian couple for private treatment. NHS Borders and Glasgow have also accepted private patients, but would not say how many.

Sheena Young, Scottish co-ordinator of the National Infertility Support Network, criticised the decision to give gay couples and single women fertility treatment, claiming there were simply not enough sperm donors to justify it.

Last year, sperm, egg and embryo donors lost their right to anonymity in new legislation that gives children the right to access information about their genetic parents.

Young said: "We are in such a crisis with donor sperm that couples with a biological problem need to be the priority."

But Sue Robertson, spokeswoman for Lesbian Mothers Scotland, welcomed the development, which she said added weight to moves by the Scottish Executive to allow unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, to adopt children.

And she called on other health boards to offer the treatment. She said: "We frequently receive queries from women who want to have children about how they are likely to be treated. It is intrinsically unfair that lesbian couples should be able to access NHS treatment in Edinburgh but not Glasgow, for example."

I frequently post stories about NHS as a warning against a national healthcare system because I believe that we are getting increasingly closer to such a system in the U.S.

Here is yet another reason why we don't want our taxes going to pay for national healthcare - we would likely end up paying for lesbians to have babies.

I suppose one or two of us would likely see a moral problem with this, as well, but even if you fully agree with the idea of homosexuals owning children, do you want to have to pay for it?

Last year, sperm, egg and embryo donors lost their right to anonymity in new legislation that gives children the right to access information about their genetic parents.

Here's the other thing I found interesting ... how would you like to find out that dad was a perv who went to the fertility clinic because he didn't want to have to buy his own porn?

I frequently post stories about NHS as a warning against a national healthcare system because I believe that we are getting increasingly closer to such a system in the U.S.
Here is yet another reason why we don't want our taxes going to pay for national healthcare - we would likely end up paying for lesbians to have babies.
I suppose one or two of us would likely see a moral problem with this, as well, but even if you fully agree with the idea of homosexuals owning children, do you want to have to pay for it?

1. It's always so odd. People want absolute control of their reproductive activity....yet they want the government to pick up the tab for it. [People have the same attitude about drugs and promiscuity. They want to "party" all their lives and then have the government pay for their medical expenses, detox and rehab....over and over and over and over and over and over.]
Where I come from, if people DON'T pick up their own tab and allow someone else to pay then that SOMEONE has created "strings attached."

2. I see an enormous moral problem, more than one.
a. Marriage is the union between ONE man and ONE woman. Nothing else is acceptable. Nothing.
b. Children MUST be from that union and that union only (in vitro for the married couple, step-children or adoption, etc.). To do anything else is DEAD wrong because of the devastation to children -- the most innocent, weak and vulnerable of our citizens.

3. There IS absolute morality in this world and there are absolute imperatives. Practicing homosexuals are OUTSIDE of these Christian morality and imperatives. Their adoption of children (no matter how damaged the children are) and having children through in vitro are also outside of these Christian morality and imperatives.....in spades.
I would name these actions SINFUL and EVIL.

4. God help their children and God help Canada (and America) for allowing it.

As far as "lesbians" having babies and getting pregnant:

If they are so eager to get pregnant, can they find a man to have sex? I know they don't have the attraction for a man, but if it's that important to be pregnant, can't they lay back, open their legs, and let a man do the deed? I mean, if it's that important to them, they could do that, girt their teeth and let the man do it. Point is, there are ways of them getting sperm that they're not thinking of.

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