Fertility Treatment, Selfish?
We’ve talked a lot in our magazine about infertility and the journey some have taken to conceive a child (or more) via fertility treatments. No experience is the same and a family’s decision to receive IVF or an IUI is personal. Recently, major news publication Salon brought this heated topic to the forefront: is it selfish to pursue fertility treatments instead of adoption?
Salon author and parenting blogger Jane Roper, after finding out she was having twins, honestly dreaded the thought of people asking how she conceived her babies — not in an embarrassing way, or in the fact that some may have religious beliefs against it — but because she was concerned others would judge her as selfish for her use of ovulation stimulation drugs and an IUI.
“Multiples beg the question: ‘How exactly did that happen?’” says Roper in her recent Salon article, Was I selfish to have fertility treatments? “I wasn’t crazy about my reproductive process being speculated upon or, more to the point, given any thought at all,” she continues.
The question seems near unavoidable, but statistics show, not near impossible. In a related TIME article commenting on Roper’s view, author Bonnie Rochman points out that “More than 7 million U.S. women and their partners struggle with infertility; that’s about 12% of the reproductive-age population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Roper ends her article with a touching, heartfelt thought and questions of her own:
Why, indeed, should infertile couples be automatically expected to adopt? Why should the onus be on them to make this noble and unselfish choice, when the desire for a biological child is something shared equally by fertile and infertile couples?
Yes, my husband and I would probably have pursued adoption if we had exhausted the possibilities for having our own children, provided we could muster the financial and emotional resources to do so. Adoption is a wonderful avenue for building a family. But the technology was there for us to conceive a child — and, as it turned out, children — of our own. We had every right to use it.
What are your thoughts on the topic? Do you think it’s “selfish” to try for your own biological child over the consideration of adoption?
Category: TwinLife Parent
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