Private IVF clinics cost tens of thousands and people’s dreams
By Alice Clarke,
The Sydney Morning Herald
| 01. 11. 2021
A little under five years ago, my wife and I started going through the IVF process to have a child. Being the product of IVF surrogacy, donor sperm, and a mother, Maggie Kirkman, who is an expert in women’s experiences of infertility, I felt uniquely qualified for the process.
However, nothing really prepares you for the anguish of seeing a blastocyst on a screen, falling in love with it, and then feeling it die while you are pumped full of pregnancy hormones.
Going through IVF is the worst thing that has ever happened to me physically and emotionally. The financial costs made the whole thing far more stressful and limited how many attempts we could have. I know of people who have sold their houses and given up everything to pay for cycle after cycle to have the child they always dreamed of. What’s so infuriating, though, is that it absolutely does not have to be this expensive. This is what happens when medical care is run for private profit instead of public good. We laugh at Americans for thinking...
Related Articles
By Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 07.05.2025
Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prof...
By Maoli Duan, The Conversation | 07.02.2025
By Alice Park, TIME | 07.08.2025
Rare genetic diseases are challenging for patients and their families—made all the more overwhelming because symptoms tend to appear soon after birth.
To date, there haven’t been many reliable treatment options for these babies. The few that do exist involve...
By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.18.2025
This week we heard that eight babies have been born in the UK following an experimental form of IVF that involves DNA from three people. The approach was used to prevent women with genetic mutations from passing mitochondrial diseases to...
