IVF or adopt?

Should women be given IVF on the NHS? Or should these women be encouraged to adopt a child instead of them insisting that it has to be their own? Are women who are past normal child-bearing age just being selfish by undergoing IVF?

I admit that I have quite a bad view on IVF. I realise to many couples it is a miracle that allows them to have a child that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to have. However, I can’t help thinking that there are thousands of children out there that need adopting, and if that couple were that desperate for a child, then surely they would be satisfied with adopting a child instead. I realise that it’s not the same as having a child with your own genetic code, but I still believe that they should adopt instead of spending all that money and effort on trying IVF.

What makes me feel like this is in a couple of points…

Firstly I get really annoyed when I hear about women that are using IVF to have a child after their normal child-bearing days are drawing to a close. This is pure selfishness to my mind. It tends to be “professional” women that have put off having children in order to work. I’m sorry, I know this is harsh, but tough! You made the choice to not have children in favour of concentrating on your career, so you should live with that decision and not insist on having IVF to cheat nature. By having a child at this older age she is putting more risks of damage on the child and on herself. If she really had wanted kids, then she should have sacrificed her work and had them when she had the chance, like other women did.

The second reason I get annoyed with it is a form of jealousy on my part. I am just as broody and want children just as much as any woman does, but I am not given an option like IVF to have a child of my own, so why should women be the only ones allowed to have that option? I realise that women are the only ones biologically able to bear children, but seeing as you are already bypassing nature in giving IVF then why should males not be given a similar chance to have children too?

By insisting that only a child with their own genetic material will do for them, they are demonstrating to me that they can’t be that desperate to have a child, because if, like me, you really want a child, you are more than prepared to love a child that doesn’t have your genetic material as if it were your own. If I am capable of doing it, then so should they be able. By insisting that only a child from IVF will do for them, they are showing incredible selfishness, in my opinion. They should be looking to adopt some of the thousands of children out there that are desperate for a loving, supportive parent and can’t find one because they’re too busy trying for IVF and spending thousands of pounds of NHS funds on a remote chance

I know that it’s perfectly possible to love a child that is not genetically connected to you, because I lost my own genetic children and I love my ex partner’s children as if they were my own flesh and blood. I know that I would do anything for them that I would do for my own children and love them unconditionally (whether they like it or not, and normally they don’t like it). I am more than aware that I am not their biological dad, and that they already have their dads in their lives, but that doesn’t change how I feel about them, and how I will always feel about them (I don’t have a choice in the matter, it’s inbuilt in me). So if I know that I am able to love children that are not mine like that, then surely others, who claim to be just as broody and desperate for a child as I am, should also be able to love an adopted child as if they were their own.

Having had a hystorectomy quite young, I would obviously have to go for adoption.

I do think if a woman struggles to have her own baby that IVF should be given on NHS. The woman hasn't asked to be like that. I think it should be up to the individual person. If they want to have IVF, let them but only once. Then after that, should they want more, encourage adoption.
Some people adopt through pure heart anyway so they would never be totally short of adoptive parents.