Reproductive Biology Assists

It's fairly fundamental to existence, the survival of the species, the genetically ingrained code invested in all organisms - the urge to reproduce. But not all creatures are destined to reproduce their species. And, among human beings, no less than among other creatures produced by nature, there will always be men and women whose reproductive capacity has been impaired - from birth or through other circumstances affecting their biological destiny.

But it is also human nature to deeply desire that which is withheld. To want something that most people take for granted in the most casual way but that is denied others. People aspire to be like everyone else, to have the positive experiences and accoutrements that others around them have. While many people have no intention of growing a family, others are dedicated to having the pleasures (and pain) inherent in raising children of their own.

And when they cannot themselves successfully achieve that cycle they rebel. In a way it's rather ironic, that people who take the reproductive process for granted and carelessly birth more children than they can manage, and ignore the very basic emotional and material needs of those children form a representative portion of society, while others who fervently wish to raise and love children stand hopelessly by.

Of course those without children can resort to the ages-old sharing of adopting a child, as is done in many 'primitive' cultures, and many advanced societies as well. But the deep-seated urge to reproduce one's own genes is not so easily by-passed since it is written into our genetic coding as the instinct for survival. And modern medical technology has intervened to give hope to those without hope.

Truth is, it's difficult for many to sympathize with a man and woman struggling to achieve that most basic of human rewards and disciplines, the birth of a child. In vitro fertilization has given new hope to many childless couples. It has become a self-sustaining industry, one that is able to extract huge sums of money from desperate people, even with its fairly low success rate.

That it represents a slow, laborious, agonizing process, and an expensive one ensuring that only the well-padded may apply, and still with scant results, demonstrates the tenacity of human desire. Among woman over 40 years of age the success rate for IVF is 10%; under that age, an IVF cycle can have a 30% success rate.

There are risks associated with fertility drug usage; two-fold risk of malformations, Down syndrome, heart disease, malformations of the uro-genital system in boys among them. Women conceiving artificially remain at higher risk of complications like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and placenta abruption where the placenta peels away from the uterus.

When things go awry there is a call on the public health system to care for mother and child, irrespective of mode of conception leading to the biological creation of another organism. Public funding of infertile couples' attempts to conceive, however, would represent another burden on an already over-stretched health care system.

The inability to conceive may represent a personal misfortune to childless couples, but it does not represent a health problem or medical urgency in the conventional sense. Public health care is there to service the health needs of an entire population, when people require medical and surgical interventions as a result of accidents, chronic health impacts, disease onset and other health malfunctions.

Artificial conception aids, the clinics and the health professionals that offer them, have become an industry, a very profitable one, existing on the margins of the traditional organization of health providers, not entirely unlike the vanity industry of cosmetic surgery.

There are times when cosmetic surgery is recognized as a necessary procedure, however, and the same might be said for reproductive techniques - but rarely.