Abortions After IVF: Scandal Created By Anti-Choice Politics

Written by Robin Marty for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

There are few people who want a baby as badly as those who have struggled with infertility, especially those who have undergone fertility treatments.   So the shocked reaction from many media outlets in the United Kingdom to news that approximately 80 pregnancies from in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures eventually ended in abortions isn’t terribly surprising.  What is surprising, however, is the vitriol in which many attacked the women that they claimed just whimsically decided they didn’t want to be mothers any more.

“Dozens of IVF babies aborted ‘after women change their minds about becoming a mother’” claims Daily Mail, as if the decision to terminate a pregnancy was taken with the thought and introspection of deciding to wear a different colored sweater, or go out for dinner rather than stay home and cook.

Dozens of women are aborting babies conceived by IVF because they have changed their minds about motherhood, figures suggest.

Many are in their teens, twenties and early thirties, implying that numerous abortions were carried out for social reasons, rather than on health grounds.

Relationship breakdowns, fears about motherhood and simple changes of heart are all likely to have played a part in the terminations.

“Women Undergoing IVF, Get Abortions on Second Thoughts” accuses Top News, because after spending months or years trying to get pregnant, and then lots of money for treatment, obviously they didn’t think it all through to start with.  

Eighty women a year undertake expensive IVF, and then terminate the pregnancies, just because they have doubts about being a mother.

Yesterday, the startling data ignited anger that some women were cruelly treating test-tube babies like “designer goods”.

Rationales offered for abortions, some sponsored by the NHS for around £5,000, were dreaded to comprise a simple change of mind.

Others were separated from their spouses, or were weighed down by families to begin a family too early.

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One IVF mother aborted her twins after finding out that her husband was not loyal to her.

Other women are believed to undergo IVF not for a baby, but just to show they can have one.

Unmentioned by either of these articles, but made clear by a report from the BBC, is that these 80 abortions included procedures done due to medical problems with the fetus, or selective reduction in order to enhance one or two fetuses’ chances for better full term birth.  Although the other articles mention the abortions occur most often in the 18-35 age range, implying more healthy babies that were aborted, the BBC also points out that that is the age range for a majority of the pregnancies in the first place, making higher abortion rates inevitable.  The conservative press made leaping assumptions about the women who abort, but the BBC spoke of not jumping to conclusions about the reasons behind the choice. Read more