Sally Cheshire, ex-chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has called out the IVF industry for taking advantage of vulnerable women.

Sally Cheshire accused IVF clinics in Britain of charging “eye-watering” prices for treatment and taking advantage of women who “lost a year of their lives” due to COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequent delays in the NHS.

Currently, some clinics are charging up to £20,000 per IVF cycle. This comes after the number of women freezing their eggs/embryos in the UK rose by 523% between 2013 and 2018.

Last year, fertility treatment enquiries increased by 50% at some clinics.

In November 2020, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), in conjunction with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), released draft industry guidance to push back against an IVF industry that was failing to detail the true cost and success rate of IVF.

The ex-chairman also accused clinics of misleading women.

As SPUC reported in November, despite the huge price tag, only 20% of IVF cycles in Britain lead to a live birth – an 80% failure rate.

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “Apart from the ghastly human price tag, in terms of human lives lost to IVF – 174,622 embryos in 2017 in the UK alone – the mental and financial cost for couples is horrendous.

“We should not forget that IVF is an industry preying on vulnerable women, as well as couples, who have not been able to conceive by natural means.

“COVID-19 is now being used to make even more money out of heartbreak, seeing embryos as a commodity, women as a source of money, and pandemic as an opportunity for greater gains.

“SPUC's basic objection to IVF is that it amounts to the manufacture of human beings. The practice of IVF assumes that our offspring may be produced in the laboratory, and that the role of the natural mother, in safeguarding with her own body the welfare of the embryo from conception, may legitimately be transferred to other people. IVF thus makes embryos vulnerable, exposing them to the risks of being discarded, frozen or experimented upon. Many thousands of human embryos have perished in the development and practice of IVF.”

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