Women are fed up with waiting – and they’re taking fertility into their own hands | Zoe Williams
We’ve climbed steadily from a place of little agency – waiting for the right partner to come along – before we could have childrenThe number of women without a partner having children by IVF or sperm donation has trebled in the past 10 years. IVF itself is not unproblematic; provision on the NHS varies wildly, with hurdles and prohibitions that range from random to downright cruel. There are trusts that won’t offer it over the age of 35, others that won’t if her partner has children from a previous relationship. Private clinics, meanwhile, can prey on people, gouging them for add-on treatments, exploiting hopes they know are unrealistic. Egg freezing – where numbers are also at a record high – is a similar racket, with the sector often accused of misleading promises or understating risks, and prices very high: the process typically costs £7,000. Fertility treatment, whether solo or with a partner, is not for sissies. Yet women’s increasing confidence to do it outside of a traditional partnership illustrates a sea change in attitudes to how families are made, and a positive one.It’s nearly 20 years since two obstetricians, Susan Bewley and Melanie Davies, published Which Career First: The most secure age for childbearing remains 20 to 35. I remember interviewing them at the time, feeling vexed by this intervention. In the surrounding media environment, various other ways of policing, judging and problematising female autonomy – abortion discourse, for instance – had passed out of fashion. Other hot-button issues that gave society licence to pass judgment on women’s morality and fitness – such as breastfeeding and behaviours in pregnancy – were only just getting going. Fertility and the risks around “leaving it too late” , however, were discussed constantly, and it had all the hallmarks of a patriarchal put-up job. People who didn’t really give a stuff about infertility as a lived experience – the complexity and pain of it – nevertheless had extremely strong views over what kind of risk “career women” posed to the greater good, and whether they would regret their choices down the line. The issue was used strategically to justify a broader opprobrium for women making any choices at all. I remember editors in the 90s (not at the Guardian!), always looking for starkest headline: anything along the lines of: “Have a baby by the time you’re 30, doctors warn”, was the holy grail. Continue reading...
We’ve climbed steadily from a place of little agency – waiting for the right partner to come along – before we could have children
The number of women without a partner having children by IVF or sperm donation has trebled in the past 10 years. IVF itself is not unproblematic; provision on the NHS varies wildly, with hurdles and prohibitions that range from random to downright cruel. There are trusts that won’t offer it over the age of 35, others that won’t if her partner has children from a previous relationship. Private clinics, meanwhile, can prey on people, gouging them for add-on treatments, exploiting hopes they know are unrealistic. Egg freezing – where numbers are also at a record high – is a similar racket, with the sector often accused of misleading promises or understating risks, and prices very high: the process typically costs £7,000. Fertility treatment, whether solo or with a partner, is not for sissies. Yet women’s increasing confidence to do it outside of a traditional partnership illustrates a sea change in attitudes to how families are made, and a positive one.
It’s nearly 20 years since two obstetricians, Susan Bewley and Melanie Davies, published Which Career First: The most secure age for childbearing remains 20 to 35. I remember interviewing them at the time, feeling vexed by this intervention. In the surrounding media environment, various other ways of policing, judging and problematising female autonomy – abortion discourse, for instance – had passed out of fashion. Other hot-button issues that gave society licence to pass judgment on women’s morality and fitness – such as breastfeeding and behaviours in pregnancy – were only just getting going. Fertility and the risks around “leaving it too late” , however, were discussed constantly, and it had all the hallmarks of a patriarchal put-up job. People who didn’t really give a stuff about infertility as a lived experience – the complexity and pain of it – nevertheless had extremely strong views over what kind of risk “career women” posed to the greater good, and whether they would regret their choices down the line. The issue was used strategically to justify a broader opprobrium for women making any choices at all. I remember editors in the 90s (not at the Guardian!), always looking for starkest headline: anything along the lines of: “Have a baby by the time you’re 30, doctors warn”, was the holy grail.
