Debate: Do upper age limits need to be imposed on women receiving assisted reproduction treatment?

Abstract

The inability of local National Health Service trusts to uniformly provide assisted reproduction technology (ART) services has resulted in what has come to be known as a ‘postcode lottery’. Older women and those with responsibility for children at home, often have to fund their own treatment. Recently, with the birth of babies to much older women, the mass media have debated whether those past menopausal age should be helped to achieve a pregnancy in this way. We argue that the time is right for interested professionals to enter the debate, especially in view of proposed revisions to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority's code of conduct which requires clinics providing ART to consider the ‘welfare of the child’. With that change in mind, we set out the case for imposing upper age limits on those receiving ART in the United Kingdom.

Keywords:

• Welfare of the child
• assisted conception
• Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)