WHO: Inability to find a sexual partner could be considered a disability
October 21, 2016 3:40 AM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, this is an interesting thing but I feel like the telegraph article and hed set it up with kinda off-to-the-side framing that's not gonna help a good discussion happen easily; someone taking another shot at this with some more detailed framing/sourcing is probably the way to go. -- cortex



 
That social behaviours, or lack of behaviours, has been medicalised is worthy of discussion. Is there a better source than the Telegraph to expand on this topic relating to infertility? I can't find one in a brief search.
posted by Thella at 4:09 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


This has to be one of those "the truth is less weird than the clickbaity headline" things, right?
posted by Wretch729 at 4:21 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


Bear in mind, too, that 'medicalising' something is one of the few routes to guaranteeing people access to healthcare interventions; cited here in particular is the e.g. for the UK of making sure that single people are treated equally within the NHS vis-a-vis infertility treatment
posted by AFII at 4:23 AM on October 21, 2016 [7 favorites]


Ahh, yes my Americanness is showing didn't occur to me that politics of access to ivf could be more complicated in countries with socialized medicine. Here you mostly just need money, though this could end up affecting insurance coverage rules here too.
posted by Wretch729 at 4:25 AM on October 21, 2016 [4 favorites]


This has to be one of those "the truth is less weird than the clickbaity headline" things, right?

Yeah, it seems it has mostly to do with legitimizing commercial surrogacy and broadening access to IVF.

Still, wait until the incel crowd gets a hold of this one.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:25 AM on October 21, 2016 [5 favorites]


But the new standard suggests that the inability to find a suitable sexual partner – or the lack of sexual relationships which could achieve conception – could be considered an equal disability

Didn't know the WHO hung out on r/foreveralone.

There was a recent Court case in the UK which demonstrated the need for much better regulation of surrogacy, blog about it here: https://suesspiciousminds.com/2016/07/01/surrogacy-and-exploitation-and-facebook/
posted by threetwentytwo at 4:38 AM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Didn't know the WHO hung out on r/foreveralone.

That didn't take long.

posted by snuffleupagus at 4:46 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


As someone who doesn't know much about IVF I am honestly astonished that hetero couples have been given priority over other couples and single parents until now. That seems pretty indefensible and this seems like a good decision.
posted by enn at 4:47 AM on October 21, 2016 [9 favorites]


Bear in mind, too, that 'medicalising' something is one of the few routes to guaranteeing people access to healthcare interventions...

But this is not a medical issue. This is social infertility.
posted by Thella at 4:48 AM on October 21, 2016 [2 favorites]


You know, I think we should revisit this whole idea of 'right to a child'.
posted by Thella at 4:49 AM on October 21, 2016 [20 favorites]


That seems pretty indefensible and this seems like a good decision.

So a man is infertile by reason of not having a partner. He walks into the NHS and you expect them to do... What, exactly?
posted by threetwentytwo at 4:54 AM on October 21, 2016 [5 favorites]


Didn't know my frown lines could get any deeper than they are already, but this proposal sure changed that
posted by Hermione Granger at 4:58 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


He walks into the NHS

This phrasing is quite hilarious - that's an awful lot of places to be at once.

you expect them to do... What, exactly?

Ideally, refer him to adoption services.
posted by Dysk at 4:59 AM on October 21, 2016 [2 favorites]


Nvm, I misunderstood the article and didn't consider the degree to which this could positively impact adoption/surrogacy/IVF. Missed the bit about not having children but wanting to; thought it was just being child-less period and that made my grind my teeth a bit
posted by Hermione Granger at 5:01 AM on October 21, 2016


From an LGBT point of view this is fantastic news.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:10 AM on October 21, 2016 [5 favorites]


Huh, the WHO definitions I could find were a fair bit more complex and I can't find the "new" definition. Does anyone have a non-clickbaity link to the proposed text? I get highly suspicious when the news goes outrage over a policy change without actually quoting the policy.

The existing definitions do pose problems for same-sex couples. The definition I could find says "a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse." I suspect there are other cases where IVF or surrogacy might be desired, such as persons with genetic disease markers or elevated pregnancy risk, or planned conception after the death of a partner. I don't have time to dig through the journal articles to see how well they are covered.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:47 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


But this is not a medical issue. This is social infertility.

If you're a woman without a male partner who wants a child, it seems to me, you have two options. Which is generally better for society: Women deliberately going out and having unprotected sex with strangers, or single women being able to access options for this from a health care provider? The situation is a bit more complicated for men, but "go out and have unprotected sex with someone you are not actually in a close relationship with" is not actually a healthy thing to be telling people to do to fix this. And inability to find a partner of the opposite sex, as the article does kind of touch on, is not something restricted to ForeverAlone types; it also applies to monogamous same-sex couples. And people who just aren't interested in having sexual relationships but do want a family.
Under the new terms, heterosexual single men and women, and gay men and women who want to have children would be given the same priority as couples seeking IVF because of medical fertility problems.
I cannot see any reason why this should not be the case, and a lot of reasons why it should.
posted by Sequence at 5:49 AM on October 21, 2016 [8 favorites]


Six months ago in Sweden single women were granted the right to apply for state-funded fertility treatment but this has already resulted in a nation-wide sperm shortage. There is discussion of establishing a national strategic sperm reserve.
posted by XMLicious at 5:51 AM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


So a man is infertile by reason of not having a partner. He walks into the NHS and you expect them to do... What, exactly?

Refer him to the exact same services as a couple, het or homo, where neither partner is able to maintain a pregnancy in their own body to a viable stage. It's the exact same problem, it's just that in one case two people are experiencing it together, in the other it's one person alone.

Editing to make clear: this is not about a 'right' to a child. It's about the 'right' to the same tax-funded healthcare options as people in relationsships/people in heterosexual relationships.
posted by AFII at 6:08 AM on October 21, 2016 [7 favorites]


Besides the obviously applications for single people who want kids, this is also the first step on the path to lonely dudes being prescribed sex robots. Which as we all know will bring about the singularity. For one, I have to say: Hail Basilisk.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:09 AM on October 21, 2016


Thella: "You know, I think we should revisit this whole idea of 'right to a child'."
Seems to me that is exactly what the WHO is doing.
XMLicious: "Six months ago in Sweden single women were granted the right to apply for state-funded fertility treatment ..."
This has been the case in Denmark for about 10 years now. The latest stats I've been able to find are from last year and show that 1 in 10 children conceived by IVF treatments were born to single mothers. (In total, they made up a whopping 0.8% of all 2015 births.)
posted by brokkr at 6:09 AM on October 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


I believe the Radio Sweden story actually said that the government was in the process of importing sperm from Denmark. This was adding the complication that in Denmark, children born through IVF (and otherwise) have the right to learn the identity of their biological parents, so Swedish treatment recipients had to be advised of the possibility.
posted by XMLicious at 6:15 AM on October 21, 2016


Bear in mind, too, that 'medicalising' something is one of the few routes to guaranteeing people access to healthcare interventions...

But this is not a medical issue. This is social infertility.


Ahem. A bit more empathy and a broader view of humanity quickly make that a moot statement. How many people get pregnant and then one member of the couple decides "oh I don't want a kid after all"? Why exactly do couples have more of a right to medical care than single people? And what on earth could make anyone say the kind of nonsense about singlehood being a statement on someone's social skills? This site is so open-minded most of the time, but boy get something like this and all of a sudden comments come out forgetting that abusive relationships exist, that LGBTQ people who want children exist, not to mention the obvious "some people choose to be single". Setting out couplehood as some sort of marker of maturity can be dangerous: it can be a major factor keeping people in abusive relationships, out of fear that they'll be seen as defective if they leave/are single.

By the way, the number one cause of death, amongst all types of death, of pregnant women? Murder at the hands of their partner. So maybe being a member of a couple isn't actually a good measure of security for a child, eh. "Even factoring in other potential causes for the finding, Horon says the risk of dying from homicide is twice as great in pregnant women as it is in nonpregnant women."

Rant aside, this is a good thing. Single parents have raised children from time immemorial, in fact I do believe our current US president and soon-to-be-president know something about it. Bonus in this helping people see singlehood as a viable choice, too, especially w/r/t abuse and social programs that could support single parents.
posted by fraula at 6:28 AM on October 21, 2016 [11 favorites]


I bet this thread would've gone approximately two and a half times as well if the linked article (or WHO, though it's hard to find their wording on the issue anywhere) had used the term "reproductive partner" rather than "sexual partner", because this is about fertility and kids, not sex or lack thereof.
posted by Dysk at 6:46 AM on October 21, 2016 [6 favorites]


Yeah, and the framing of both the post and the initial link I caught--well, I immediately was reminded of incel politics, and I see I'm not the only one. It's hard to get your hackles down again if you've tangled with those assholes, but it does seem from other discussion--before I manage to read the article, anyway--that this is a very different issue that people are trying to provide for.
posted by sciatrix at 7:11 AM on October 21, 2016


This article looks like a considerably better introduction to the topic. ...I'm almost wondering whether a new discussion framed around it instead would make a better thread. (Bonus: it links to the actual rule.)
posted by sciatrix at 7:15 AM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


in fact I do believe our current US president and soon-to-be-president know something about it.

Bill Clinton might not have been a the world's best dad, but I'm pretty sure he and Hillary have been married the whole time from before Chelsea was born.
posted by GuyZero at 7:29 AM on October 21, 2016


Ugh, wrong first link. Try this piece.
posted by sciatrix at 7:38 AM on October 21, 2016


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