Actress Lisa Riley, who appears in the ITV television soap Emmerdale, has spoken out about the heartbreak and emotional cost of IVF, which her fiancé almost “lost” her to.
Riley and her fiancé, Al, attempted to have a child through IVF in 2018. The process, which did not result in children, almost cost Lisa her relationship with Al.
“Al would never want me to go through IVF again because he said he lost the girl he fell in love with”, she told Closer magazine.
Riley, best known for playing the Emmerdale character Mandy Dingle, channelled her heartbreak into her persona’s storylines, which included miscarriage.
Riley and Al have decided not to go through IVF again, because of the emotional toll that it inflicts.
They have now come to terms with not having children of their own. “I am so blessed with my wonderful nephews and nieces and godchildren and we have taken full ownership of our life.”
“I wouldn’t go down the IVF route now, but I will let nature take its course. And, if I did fall pregnant, I would be thrilled. But I am not going to dwell on it, no one is going to give me bad news again”, she told The Mirror.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “Not only does IVF carry a huge human price tag* – only around one in 25 embryos created through IVF survive to birth, while many embryos are simply discarded – but it also comes at a huge emotional cost for the woman and her partner.
“As Lisa Riley attests, her fiancé almost lost her to the life-enveloping traumas of IVF.
“The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) recently revealed that out of roughly 51,000 patients undergoing IVF treatment every year, between 2016-2018, only around a third had a successful live birth, as SPUC reported this year.
“SPUC has repeatedly called on the IVF industry to be more transparent about the low success rate of IVF.”
*IVF 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.
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