OK this is the third time I am reading this article. Maybe this time, just maybe, I will discover a point. Nope no point whatsoever. Nice one, Daniel Donahoo, a completely pointless article. No real contention, just a random stream of consciousness. Bloody oath mate, if this is all the level of writing talent you need, why aren't they letting us all have a crack?

Daniel

Thank you once again for a thoughtful article.

I was on the Vic IVF program back in 1981. My number came up in 1985 in NSW.

I declined. I had to examine my motivation. I dearly wanted to have a child. But my (then) husband, was an alcoholic - which the IVF system had not detected, and because of my own selfishness, I did not reveal.

I declined on the grounds that I just might get pregnant. I could not bring a child into this world to fulfill my own needs. What if I had been successful? The baby would have been at risk of violence. I could not countenance that.

I have since had over some 20 years of reflection. I think that we need to learn to accept and cop our fate in life. We can still have a fulfilling life. We can contribute to society. We can help others to help ourselves.

My professional life has been devoted to people who have mental health problems, which has been my privilege.

We all need to stop being so egocentric. We've got what we've got. We need to accept it.

We need to stop interfering with nature. We need to stop interfering with human beings.

I will not have a heart transplant. I will just accept that I will die.

I will not kill myself. I will just accept that I will die.

Simple really

Cheers
Kay

And people of both genders still argue there is no such thing as sperm theft. If use of a man’s sperm for unauthorised purpose is not theft, then I don’t know what is. It takes the frozen sperm of a dead man to highlight routine obstruction of men’s reproductive rights.

I could anticipate the arguments – “she was in love with him”, “if he was alive, he would have made the same choice”, and what about the one that always catches us out – if he didn’t want children, he would have kept it in his pants.

Spare me any romantic notions you may have of this particular case. Others may think “no skin off his nose”, so what’s the problem? The problem is this - when it comes to men having a say, they have as much right as a dead guy!

I look forward to reproduction techniques that require no sperm, and toward the day when the sexual act can be considered independently from our desire to procreate - when men can rest in peace (especially the dead ones), knowing they will not be fathers unless they want to. Don’t start thinking condoms now … this guy is dead - and no, this is not an unreasonable expectation – it is a right every woman already enjoys.

And what about a guy who in the heat of the moment genuinely thinks he wants to be father, but then 5 minutes later (or during the first trimester at least), changes his mind …

Could our language be so gender-dependant as to allow for opposing meanings to be drawn from words such as NO, simply due to gender of speaker?

Rather than seek, Seeker, a society where procreation and love-making are divided, surely we should seek the opposite, so as to reinforce the position of man and woman in the creation and sustainance of life? Don't these problems stem from us seeing procreation as this mechanical process, rather than as the natural fruits of a relationship, had at the most opportune times?

I think that the "have it all" desire is a bit of a myth. A myth in that men never had it all before, and women arn't going to have it all now. Contentment with one's lot was lost after the second world war, unfortunately.

Perhaps the "value-neutral" sex education being taught in school should cover IVF and other such issues. The message should be "if you want a family and a career, then have the kids early, and the career later". Women are going to be in the workforce for a longer and longer time thanks to an aging population, yet they won't become miraculously fertile.

"To uphold the choice of the dead over that of the living is a new twist."

Have you ever heard of a will? It's a new twist to alter it, like the unprecedented step of the House of Commons to alter a certain Rhodes' will to allow women to gain his eponymous scholarship.

I think that we need some simple rules for IVF.
1. Only married couples (if you want the child, ensure its stability).
2. Both contributers must be alive.
3. The mother must carry her own child.
4. Abbott's plan for funding should be implemented (3 a year, 3 after 42, I would add none after 45).
5. One egg per cycle (like in England).

These rules are not only fiscally and socially responsible, but also reaffirm some important ideas.
1. You shouldn't wait until late 30's, early 40's.
2. We can't get ahead of ourselves.
3. It's not just about you, but also about new life.

When my true love was seriously injured in an accident and rendered impotent I wished that his sperm could have been harvested, frozen and later used for artificial insemination. The surgeon made it quite clear that although the techniques had been perfected by animal husbandry as we were dealing with humans this was ethically not possible.

After more than half century of living, after watching his nephews grow up, I can say that he was the best sperm donor I have had relations with.

If we deny IVF technologies we are denying ourselves the opportunities to improve humans. I can't see why we work hard to improve our livestock yet we run a primitive hit and miss technology to reproduce humans.

IVF is a wonderful technology in many ways - a woman I used to work with struggled to get pregnant for years before finally having a baby via IVF. The joy on her face... it was lovely to see.

In the case of the woman using her dead husband's sperm, I wonder what the ethics are? I mean, were she pregnant, even a day pregnant when he died, the child would still have been born after the husband's death... but I wonder if perhaps the possibity of having this child perhaps stopped the woman from moving on from her husband's death and finding a new partner?

Also, I would suggest that in the next ten years or so, that the age at which people are having children will start to come down again- people are becoming more aware that IVF cannot be the cure-all for infertility, and both men and women will start to think about having children a little earlier.