Depends entirely on your definition of 'working properly'. If my hair is the wrong colour does that mean my body isn't 'working properly' and the NHS should pay for it to be coloured every so often? If I don't seem to get a tan on holiday should the NHS buy me a sunbed? If I'm thin should the NHS buy me a pie? If I'm short should they buy me platform heels?

To me, the definition of 'working properly' is the answer to the question 'If we don't treat this are you going to die, be significantly incapacitated or be in significant and continual pain?' If the answer is 'no' then the body in question is 'working properly'.

Jon

+1

Yes but depression as a result of such issues can make it more costly to ignore. I prefer the options of helping them rather than trident or another war.

One of the fundamental issues though is that by the time you get yourself settled with a long-term partner, decided that you both want to start a family, discovered that there may be a problem (inconceivable? Impregnable?) had yourselves tested to confirm it, found out that due to the postcode lottery of where you live and which health authority you happen to belong to that there's no IVF available on the NHS and spend a year or so appealing against the whole knuckle-headed process (my niece and her husband recently went through this) and failing, only then do you discover that you're regarded as too old to adopt - even if you want to.

Throw his & hers careers that move you around the country (or around different countries) into the mix and you have a recipe for some seriously unhappy couples going forwards - and something that will only become more commonplace IMHO.

Pete

It's rather nonsensical to start extending the argument like that.

The NHS is for aiding people who are ill and/or going to die if they do not receive help, it's not there to spend money on getting women pregnant. As for the mental health issues, I'm not sure how many people it would affect and it's pretty much pick any number out of thin air and run with it sort of idea if there's no evidence available.

Why is it acceptable to put funds into IVF and any other form of help in aiding couples to have children, who otherwise can't, and moving those funds away from the people who the NHS is fundamentally obliged to aid, those who are ill and those who could die?

The NHS should be there to help those already living, not help in creating more for those whose biology has deemed cannot create themselves.

Adopt or pay for it, I have no problem with either, but funds should not be diverted away from those that need it to survive.

How do you define ill? The non- or incorrect functioning of a body part? Doesn't sterility come into that then?
FWIW (and that's not much) I'd rather people adopt, but seeing as the transmission of your genes is about the only common, fundamental function of life on Earth, I can understand why people would rather try for a more natural child raising experience.
And don't forget something like 2/3rds of adoptions fail. It's not a simple case of 'Here's your child, all the best, it's plain sailing from here on in for you and your happy family.'

The ability of their body to reproduce is I would say a pretty core aspect of a person's health, the NHS is there to provide treatment that would otherwise be only available to the rich, it's there to treat niggling non-urgent problems, and thus improve a person's quality of life, just as its there to provide life-saving, emergency surgery.

It might be nonsensical but the money comes from the same pot - the tax payer.

I prefer money to be spent wisely and efficiently and on life saving but the NHS is not just life saving. They also help make debilitating conditions bearable or go away completely.

No, it's not. Millions of people in the world fail to reproduce by choice and I don't see any great issue with their health en masse. Not having kids won't kill you. It's a shame and I do not wish it upon anyone (well, maybe Jordan but it's too late now) but the bare fact of it comes down to this :-

If person A is having IVF paid for by the NHS then person B is not getting a drug which would extend their chances in a fight against cancer that is killing them. Or person C is having to live with a more primitive prosthetic limb because a more sophisticated one can't be bought. Or Person D is having to wait six months longer for a hip replacement because the trust can't afford to employ another consultant surgeon.

The NHS's resources are finite. Every time you give to someone, you are by definition taking away from someone else. So the simple question you end up asking is this - "If the NHS doesn't help you, will you die early because of that?" while there is one single person in the UK for whom the answer to that question is 'yes', then that person deserves the money spent on them,not on someone who wants something which bad luck or fate or whatever has decreed they won't have. I'm sorry, it's terrible. But there are worse things and the NHS should be putting them before IVF.

The NHS is there to keep YOU healthy or give YOU a level of comfort with your illness that allows you to live as normal a life as possible.

If you can't have children, you aren't ill, so the NHS can't make you healthy again. If it is a "measly" 800 quid, why bother the NHS with it? If you can afford to raise a child, the extra 800 quid to have one isn't going to make any difference...

But the NHS doesn't make war, at least on other humans, and they don't pay for Trident... That is a separate issue. If the NHS was better funded, I'd still disagree with IVF treatment being on the NHS. As I said above, having a kid is incredibly expensive, the cost of the IVF treatment for the prospective parents is a drop in the ocean, in comparison. If they can't afford the IVF, they can't afford to have a kid anyway...


I've gotten used to the fact, that I will never have kids. That said, I've helped a couple of single-mother friends raise their kids and I've now got a girlfriend with 2 teenage daughters. That is the closest I will ever come to having children, but it isn't a problem. It was great fun seeing those kids grow up and helping them deal with some of the new experiences of life, I would have loved to have done that with my own children, but I wasn't in a position to do that, and now it is too late - I have no idea whether I could have had children, if I had found the right partner, but I came to terms with the fact a long time ago.

That is a good argument for it not being free. My point re trident was that as a society we have to make some choices.

I'm not sure I'm anti fertility on the NHS, but Sarah and I decided that if we were unable to conceive that would be it, not trying for fertility clinics.



Now that I definitely can bitch about (unless it's post accident or whatever).

Indeed we do but, personally, I was trying to discuss this within the realms of the funds within the NHS rather than general taxtion policies (I agree with your point FWIW, trident is useless, the US and Russia have enough to rip the atmosphere off the planet several times over so we don't need to keep on pretending we're an Empire).

My point was more as to why should any NHS funds be put into such areas as fertility when there aren't enough funds, as it is, to provide treatments and drugs for those already living.

big_D's point re the cost is a very good argument, as you say. It does seem a bit bizarre that those that cannot conceive have to jump over numerous hurdles in order to adopt and the child's welfare is of paramount importance and yet any other asshole can do what the monkies do and have children of their own.