Single Women And IVF

Posted by Joanna Karpasea-Jones May 26, 2008

I don't agree with hybrid embryo's or having a child purely to save someone else, but I am in favour of single mother's rights to IVF. It's not guaranteed that everyone will meet that special someone to have a family with. I've been single since the age of 24 and never found anyone else in seven years. If I hadn't given my son's father another chance, he wouldn't be here. Why should single women, who have to forgo the dream of a partner, also put up with being childless? They still have plenty of love to give.

As for lesbian woman having a right to IVF, why not? Gay men have the right to adopt. In an age when gay couples can legally marry by virtue of a civil partnership, it surely follows through that they should be allowed to have children?

Some say that children won't thrive without a father but there are plenty of other male role models, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, friends. The MP that says fatherless children will take drugs and drop out of school is referring to a study based on children of divorce. Those children who have always lived in a single parent or same sex parent family don't have these adverse outcomes. It is divorce that causes the damage, not being single.

Rather than tout about the need for a father, people should be supporting single parents bringing up their children lovingly and do something to tighten divorce laws so that couples don't think they can just cancel if things aren't going well. Every happy family I've ever known has had times where they weren't.