NHS abolishing fathers

News

The number of single women having a baby via IVF or a sperm donor has tripled in the past decade, sparking criticism about the erasure of fathers and the decline of the natural married family.

New official figures published last week show that between 2012 and 2022, the number of single women receiving fertility treatment increased from 1,400 to 4,800.

In the same period, the number of female same-sex couples receiving fertility treatment more than doubled from 1,300 to 3,300.

Despite this huge increase in just a few years, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) complained that “disparities in access remain” for single women and lesbian couples, since opposite-sex couples were three times as likely to receive NHS funding for fertility treatment.

HFEA Chair Julia Chain recommended that commissioners of NHS fertility services should “review their eligibility criteria”. One NHS Trust for the East Midlands region is already taking this forward.

Could there be any clearer example of where the values of the health establishment are at odds with the evidence on what’s best for children?

If HFEA and the broader healthcare sector truly had children’s interests at heart, they would be sounding the alarm about the sharp growth in children being born into fatherless households, not spending taxpayers’ money making the problem worse.

Social science research shows that children in single-parent households are twice as likely to experience poverty and behavioural issues as those in two-parent families. 76% of young men in prison in England and Wales had an absent father.

Recently, single mum Stacy Thomson spoke to the Daily Mail. She said that four years ago, she used IVF as a single person to become pregnant at 41, but now she ‘grieves the absence’ of a father for her son. “It makes you acutely aware of your own loneliness.”

It’s no coincidence that the explosive growth in fertility treatment for single people and lesbians came in the decade after same-sex marriage was introduced. Many of the laws introduced in the past two decades, from the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 and the Same Sex Marriage Act 2013, have implied that fathers are expendable.

But at C4M, we know the truth: children need their dads, and real marriage between a man and a woman is the best way to ensure they have one.