Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Difficult to ConceiveAuthor(s): Sheila HamiltonSource: Fortnight, No. 259 (Feb., 1988), p. 15Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551439 .

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limiting legal abortions to 18 weeks was await

ing its second reading as we went to press. His

concern is totally centred on the foetus?he has

none for women: "Yes, he says," according to

the Guardian, "he would force a woman to give birth to handicapped children, even if they didn't want to." It is dismaying that Mr Alton, a

Liberal, is seeking to dismantle the 1967 Abor

tion Act?which David Steel brought in.

The fact that there are three other anti-abor

tion bills awaiting readings?by Messrs Leigh, Hinds and Winterton?suggests patterns in tac

tics within the international anti-abortion cam

paign. When the Society for the Protection of the

Unborn Child secured the amendment to the

Republic's constitution in 1983 it pledged that

this was not the end of the matter. It promised to

close the clinics next and in January 1987,

having been injoined, the clinics offering preg

nancy counselling?which included abortion as

an option?were obliged to stop. Mr Alton and

the others are meanwhile whittling away at the

1967 Abortion Act until abortion will not be an

option at all?the stated objective of SPUC.

After the second reading of the Alton bill it

will probably go before a Commons select

committee. If not rejected at that stage the cur

rent opinion seems to be that a 24-week compro mise?the present limit is 28 weeks?will be

reached. In fact this will bring the law into line

with practice. Whatever the final number of

weeks is, however, it is only a matter of time

before another restrictive amendment is tabled.

Mr Alton's arguments are based on 'viabil

ity'. How long does a baby have to stay in the

womb, said Andrew Veitch in the Guardian.

before it can survive in the outside world?

Improvements in technology since the 1967 act

have prompted the Royal College of Obstetri

cians and Gynaecologists to recommend a 24

week abortion limit. While reproductive tech

nologies are being presented as offering women

greater choice, some, such as development of

the artificial womb or placenta, can actually reinforce the control men have over women. Mr

Alton's bill aims to force women to have un

wanted babies, simply because the technology exists to keep the baby alive.

As regards what are being called the new

reproductive technologies, in the Republic arti

ficial insemination by donor (AID) is available

through the Dublin Well Woman centres. AIH

(by husband's sperm) is only available through a fertilisation clinic in St James' Hospital and

there are no self-insemination groups. The window-dressing and media showcase

of reproductive technology is the test-tube baby, or /'// vitro fertilisation (IVF). But research pre sented at the Women's Worlds Congress in

Dublin last year (Fortnight 252) indicated that

success rates for IVF remained very low, 8-12

per cent being the highest reported?and these

reflect not the 'live baby take-home rate' but

only successful pregnancies. The first the Republ ic heard of IVF was when

Dr R Harrison claimed he had three women

pregnant on his IVF programme?apparently not even members of his own profession knew

about it. Dr Harrison has given a promise that no

experimentation on fertilised eggs will be done

in Ireland. Mary Warnock, author of the report to government in Britain on this area, questioned

at a Maynooth seminar whether such a promise could however be kept?considering that to

improve the low success rate for IVF experi mentation seemed absolutely necessary.

Yet here again we see Irish doctors paying

great attention to the fertilised egg: their concern

is foetus-centred. "Irish women are poxed by Catholic doctors," says Dr Paddy Leahy, and

what worries feminists about these new repro ductive technologies are the issues of informa

tion, access and control.

Lena Koch found in her research on the

experience of women on IVF programmes that

many lacked essential information. They rarely received any infertility counselling and once a

woman was on to the "merry-go-round" of at

tempting to have a baby through IVF she was

continually built up, only to be devastated by

repeated failure.

IVF programmes are usually free for couples

initially, with the clients generally working class. But media hype and risingpublic demand

bring increased costs: to enter such a pro

gramme in Dublin now costs a thousand pounds. Thus only certain women have access and the

technology is always in the hands of the medical

profession, which gains international renown

even for abysmally low success?while

women, the subjects of such programmes, have

no control. IVF allows scientists access to

women's reproductive organs for experimental work like embryo transfer. And gene manipula tion can take place on discarded eggs from such

procedures, without the woman's knowledge.

I

In a country where women are still shouting for access to proper contraception, where abor

tion is punishable by life imprisonment, where

non-directive pregnancy counselling is banned, where the constitution guarantees the foetus an

equal right to life with the mother and where

there is limited access to sterilisation, the obvi

ous question is: why are we being offered this

particular choice? Have the new technologies created the demand? Reproductive technology sets itself up as saviour to women who wish to

reproduce, yet Mr Alton's bill is an attempt to

force women to reproduce who do not want to.

Is reproduction once again becoming the sole

role of women? Or perhaps only so until science

comes up with a more streamlined model of

production? When women can control their own fertility

safely and confidently, when women feel secure

about their reproductive rights, then they will

have the time to assess the real value and long term effects of these new technologies. In this

society, under the direction of current scien

tists?few of whom are female, even fewer

feminist?to present this technology as freeing

any woman is suspect.

I

Difficult to conceive BETWEEN ONE in six and one in

eight couples who want children have

difficulty conceiving, and of those one

in 15 remain childless. Between two

and four million people in the UK suf fer from infertility.

"That's a lot of people," says Moira

Nicholson, chair of the Northern Ire

land branch of the National Associa

tion for the Childless. A thousand new

patients a year are referred to the infer

tility clinic at the Royal Victoria Hos

pital, the only one in the north. In vitro

fertilisation (IVF) has only been avail

able in Northern Ireland within the past year?previously many went pri

vately. Work is also being done on

newer techniques, such as Gamete In

tra Fallopian Tube Transfer (GIFT), which does not entail fertilising the egg or growing the embryo outside the

woman's body and is therefore

cheaper. The first children conceived

by this technique were born recently. The Association for the Childless

Moira Nicholson with her two-year old daughter, Jenny

provides fact-sheets, information and support for infertile couples. "We've all suffered from

infertility ourselves." says Mrs Nicholson.

"What we're doing really is acting as a shoulder

for people to cry on ... We counsel on the tele

phone, we counsel at our meetings, but we are

not trained counsellors. And all we can do is say 'Look, it happened to us and here's how we

felt."*

Professional counsellors are desperately needed, she says, particularly when people have been told 'Well, that's it. we can do no

more for you. Go home, forget it': "Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the medical pro fession, but they don't have the time. They will

counsel as part of their normal treatment but

they can't provide absolutely."

Counselling is also vital for people being treated by IVF or artificial insemination by

donor, and for those who have been turned

down for adoption. Adoption can be slow and

painful, as demand far outstrips available chil

dren. Counselling for people who are not per

mined to adopt?often because they have

passed the age limit of 35?has recently been

made a legal requirement in England and

Wales, but not in Northern Ireland.

The group is campaigning for funding for a

part-time infertility counsellor, for better serv

ices, particularly for male infertility, and for

research into its causes. Men are sometimes

unwilling to shoulder their share of the burden

of infertility. Mrs Nicholson believes: "I've

known of cases where men have absolutely refused to come to the group, and refused to

listen to their wives talking about it ... We

would encourage people to come in couples." The Northern Irish branch of the NAC has

been going for six years, and has about 70

members scattered across the north. It meets

monthly at 113 University Street. Belfast (tel 325488). Speakers have included gynaecolo gists, medical geneticists, social workers, mar

riage guidance counsellors and clergy. Meet

ings are open and all inquiries dealt with confi

dentially.

Fortnight January 15

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