Should the pro-choice movement extend to protect fertility treatment rights?

[HappyWeasel]

I think that the 2006 election and recent advances in science have been pivotal in the fact that it has allowed the pro-choice movement to diversify itself outside of the abortion debate. This should continue to be part of the pro-choice movement, but we should focus on other things. For example, reconstructive surgery for the transgendered and eunuchs(those who have lost reproductive capability due to violence, disease and birth defect) to make them fertile again.

I would get a link to this, but the news site is too busy....but the issue is that there has been some succes at rebuild totally evicerated and non-existing reproductive tracts.

[TerdlowSmedley]

1. I would far rather see efforts toward the rights of children already

in existence. As long as children are languishing in the foster care system, living in poverty, and without adequate health care, I see fertility assistance as a rich woman's prerogative that does not warrant the same kind of energy as other women's and children's issues.

[Katherine Brengle]

2. Yes, it can definitely be a class issue rather than a women's rights issue...

I'm not sure how I feel about it. AFAIK, fertility treatments are perfectly legal in this country, right? Expensive, but legal and available...

As far as recontructive surgery goes, I'm not sure how that ties into "choice" unless you are talking about sexual reassignment.

[HappyWeasel]

3. hmmmm

I am talking about sexual reassignment...and yes, I agree with you that something must be done about children...but we need something to show moderates and independents that we are as much about creating life as preventing it

[PDenton]

6. I hate to burst your bubble

... but moderates will not care about transgendereds having kids all that much; it will not move them to support pro-choice at all. It just doesn't square with the ideology of most moderates. Acceptance of transgendered people lags far behind acceptance of homosexuals in the public. Not to be offensive but alot of people I know would laugh at that suggestion that transgendered people need help pro-creating, it is just the reality.

The US in general supports access to all kinds of fertility treatments, probably because Americans see "fertility treatments" and they are thinking about a married couple (man and woman) trying to have kids (and of course there is social pressure to conform to the ideal American family, which is man and woman with kids), and also because it is a business that makes $$$, and Americans seem to worship anything that makes money. In France they actually banned giving public funds to lesbians for the purpose of having children, as well as barring them from French hospitals to obtain those treatments, so it's not like the US is far behind other countries on the fertility issue. Last time I checked in most of the US lesbians having children via in-vitro or similar means is not illegal, but effectively it is in France.

[WildClarySage]

4. It's always been my stance that reproductive freedom

extends to fertility assistance.

BTW, not all fertility treatment is expensive. The most commonly used fertility treatment is Clomid, a cheap pill that many insurances (including medicaid) will cover.

[HappyWeasel]

5. There ya go.

I mean, adoption is needed, but some people need that maternal connection that starts at birth if not before.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. I think they're two good causes, not one.

By all means try and promote both access to fertility treatment and access to abortion - I think both are very good causes.

But I think they're two different good causes, and should be approached as such.

The issue with abortion is mainly legal attempts to ban people who could get access to abortion if the state kept its nose out of their business.

The issues about fertility treatment is - I think, although I'm far from confident-are mainly about whether and to whom the state should provide it - I don't know of any legal attempts to prevent people having access to it. That said, I probably wouldn't know of such attempts even if they did exist, to be fair.

My attitude to the latter is basically "file under 'free-at-point-of-use taxpayer-funded health care for all, desirability of', along with lots of other medical procedures".

[lips]

8. This issue as well as many others...

I tend to take with several grains of economic salt because of the disproportionate and political influence the pharmaceutical lobby possess. It is important to remember that if abortion is seen as a reproductive choice then it must remain so through all stages of health care that are encountered, whether that be PlannedParenthood, socialized medicine, or Dayspring Counseling. I'd feel better about lumping them under a more generic label than "reproductive choice". Personal freedom seems to be the most compelling argument for allowing such a conflation, but at the same time I do think they are subtly different cases/issues. In the end accessibility and cost are key points.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-08-02-doctorsrefusals_N.htm

*snip*
__More than half the states in the past two years have debated expanding legal protections for health care providers, including pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for the "morning after" pill. Two states have passed them.__

[Archon]

9. nah

Absolutely not. We have too many people as is in the world.