According to
this article, lots of women who could get pregnant the old-fashioned way, are going to doctors for in vitro fertilization:
Many fertility experts believe that IVF offers women the best chance of pregnancy - a one in three chance of success or better in one cycle if the woman is under 35, whereas natural conception has no better than a one in four chance for a woman of the same age even if a couple have an active sex life.
An active sex life aimed at pregnancy is considered to be unprotected sex at least once every three days....
Michael Dooley, a gynaecologist, obstetrician and fertility expert, said that in the past five years he has seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of patients seeking "inappropriate or premature" IVF treatment.
"Many of these couples are simply not having sex or not having enough sex," he said. "Conception has become medicalised. It's too clinical. There has been a trend away from having sex and loving relationships towards medicalised conception."...
Emma Cannon, who runs the fertility programme at Westover House, said: "I have patients who diary sex in. When the they don't fall pregnant they panic and think they need IVF.
"People want everything now. If they can't have a baby now, they want IVF. They think it's no different from putting your name down for a handbag. Some people are horrified by the idea that they have to have sex two to three times a week. About 10 per cent of people I see don't have time to have sex. It's usually when you have two professionals who are based in the city and are very busy.
"Mothers might be working or their children sleep in their bed. I told one of my patients who is going through IVF that another IVF patient had just conceived naturally. She said: 'What? She's having sex? Bloody Luddite'."
As you can tell from the spelling (or if you went to the link), the news comes from England. Though the article plays up weird-sounding anti-sex attitudes, I think the phenomenon has more to do with anticipating fertility problems and worrying about confirming the problem after it is too late to get the government to pay for the treatment (which costs at least £2,500):
Government guidelines on when women should receive treatment (on the NHS) say IVF should be given only to those aged between 23 and 39 who have an identified cause for the fertility problem or who have suffered unexplained fertility problems for at least three years."
So I tend to think the quote I put in the title is entirely a joke, and it's really all about money.
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8 comments:
Don't you think underlying this is the disinformation that women have been receiving about getting pregnant? Today, the media sensationalizes things such as IVF causing women in their 20s to wait to have children. Then when you get in your thirties, you discover that IVF isn't a magical answer. What a crock.
There is, however, a benefit to all these women doing IVF. It should lead to more people doing IVF and possibly lower prices and better technology for the people that actually need it. If it doesn't lead to lower prices and better technology, then ...
Don't think this is going to be a problem for much longer. Artificial wombs are on their way - and I would think that a lot of the people who didn't want to be bothered by sex really wouldn't want to be bothered with pregnancy.
I would think tht the old fashioned way would also be considerably more fun than the medical approach, but y;know, to each their own. I suppose what it lacks for in enjoyment, it makes up for in efficiency....Oh, wait, the article points out that the medical way is less efficient! Bizarre.
Brings a new meaning to the phrase, "no sex please....we're British" (it was a play and a 1973 movie)
Maybe because so many have now discovered that getting pregnant isn't as easy as it seems? We've got quite a few couples in our Newly Married class of about 40 couples that are trying to conceive -- and unable to. When you see that heartache, you begin to understand why this is such a big deal to people.
I thought (as I haven't seen anyone mention it here, yet) I'd drop a note that this is just one more step on acheiving the goal of certain really radical feminists I have encountered in my travels: the final eradication of the need for men and the necessity of their removal from existance so femanity can finally acheive utopia.
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