Image Credits: mayonews.ie
Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh has announced she is 16-weeks pregnant after undergoing IVF treatment as a single woman; while also revealing she faced significant online backlash during the process.
Walsh, 38, conceived through IVF using donated sperm and is due to give birth in October. The Midlands-North-West MEP said she had always wanted to become a mother, even though she had not originally imagined doing so alone.
“I’m really privileged: I own my home, and at 38 years of age, the clock was kind of ticking,” she said during an interview on RTÉ Radio 1.
The process reportedly cost around €7,000 and was carried out through a fertility clinic in Galway. Walsh selected sperm from the European Sperm Bank, which offers extensive information about donors, including photographs from childhood. She said she compared donor images with pictures of her nieces and nephew to find someone who resembled her family.
Walsh, who publicly came out after winning the Rose of Tralee in 2014, described the IVF journey as emotionally and physically demanding. She underwent hormone treatments, delays in the process, and fears of miscarriage before eventually receiving a positive pregnancy test in January.
Walsh also used the interview to encourage more public discussion around fertility treatment and IVF, arguing that many women still feel unable to speak openly about their experiences. She pointed out that around 6,000 IVF procedures took place in the Republic of Ireland last year, despite relatively little national debate about assisted reproduction.
She said she wanted to share her story so that other women considering IVF, particularly single women, could better understand the realities of the process.
Walsh said she plans to continue her political career after becoming a mother. She intends to take maternity leave in November before returning to work remotely in December and resuming in-person duties in January.
Executive Director of SPUC, Michael Robinson, notes: “Maria Walsh seems to be pleased that she is choosing to intentionally raise a fatherless child. We know through working with women who have bravely chosen life that fatherlessness is a tragedy that harms children and families, not a gloating matter. Walsh’s blatant promotion of it shows a complete ignorance of the needs of the child and a complete selfishness that is ever more frequently seen on the behalf of commissioning parents.
“Furthermore, one can’t help but find it strange that Walsh has been selecting her sperm donors based on pictures of children. It’s creepy at best and eugenic at worst. SPUC vows to be a voice against the rising tide of assisted reproduction that not only intentionally creates children to be apart from their parents but leaves a trail of death and discarded embryos behind it.”
