As Nature Intended

You know that Roy Lichtenstein print-the one that says "Oh my God, I forgot to have a Baby!"?

Well, according to Josephine Quintavalle, this sort of forgetfulness is at the very root of the causes of infertility.

For those of you not already familiar with some of the current ongoing debates about reproductive technology in this country, allow me to introduce Countess Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of "Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE)", a "public interest" group.

CORE should really be called Criticism of Reproductive Everything, because that is their basic stance. Quintavalle is an outspoken critic of IVF. "Everyone seems to think they have the absolute right to babies and that medicine can put it right for them if they can't," she complains.

She has been at the epicentre of legal challenges brought on behalf of CORE against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority including a really interesting preimplantation genetic diagnosis case which I will write about once I have done more background reading. But her remit seems to extend to commenting on as widely and obnoxiously as possible on all things reproductive.

In fact, the Countess of Asshats has said so many unbelievably infuriating and irritating things, there is enough material to keep me blogging for quite some time.

Let's start with the Ovarian Tissue Transplant case. 32 year-old woman, diagnosed with cancer has some of her ovarian tissue frozen prior to undergoing chemotherapy. Once she is well again, the tissue is replaced. She gets pregnant. No one is quite sure if her success was a result of the tissue treatment, since she did have one remaining ovary during the chemo. But whatever. It's nice news for her, and it may represent hope for a lot of women facing up to the possibility that cancer treatment will render them sterile.

In wades Quintavelle. According to her, this is all cause for concern. Quintavelle is worried! Very worried! Because this treatment may end up being used as "a lifestyle choice for designing when you want to have children." She has commented that "women should have children, "when Nature intended," in their mid-20s."".

Whoa! What a revelation. And to think all this time that I have been Iabouring under the misapprehension that nature will allow me to have children in my early thirties, or possibly even later. But I guess Mother Nature must be really pissed off with me for having the temerity to try to get pregnant now. If only I had known! Was there a memo or an e-mail or something? Did anyone else miss it, too?

Even if I had received the memo, I'm not sure what I would done about it, considering that during my mid-twenties I was trapped in a loveless marriage, obsessing over someone I couldn't have, working in a dead end job earning a pittance, friendless and alone, severely depressed and anorexic.

But hey, no worries. Because despite my utter utter selfishness in waiting until I was sane, solvent and in a secure and loving relationship (does all that constitute a "lifestyle choice"?) I now realise that all I need to do is have some ovarian tissue removed, frozen and transplanted later on. Hooray! Sign me up, cause that sounds like fun. Just the thing to enable me to carry on greedily pursuing my career and my goals in life, and defer having children until after menopause if I feel like it. Pass the Chardonnay!

I think most people do appreciate that all technology, including reproductive medicine can to some extent be dangerous, can potentially be abused. There are ethical problems that do want careful consideration and healthy debate. But, correct me if I am wrong here, I didn't get the impression that anyone would ever sign up for IVF as a part of an overall "lifestyle choice".

I wonder if Countess Quintavalle has any notion of the misery, the heartache, the stress- leading up to the point where a couple come to understand that if they want to pursue their dream of being parents, they require assisted conception. I somehow doubt it, sitting in her privileged sphere of judgmental self-righteousness. It seems to me what Quintavalle is really saying is that the only people with an absolute right to have a baby are the ones who get pregnant naturally. Like her. The rest of you women out there should also make sure that you have babies when Nature intended! What? Haven't got your act together in time? Infertile despite your youth for some other reason, like you simply don't ovulate? Well, in that case you are expected to suck it up. No medical treatment for you, you selfish/unworthy bitch, clearly you are not meant to be a mother!

All I can think of in response is that if you remove the "O" from Countess, it spells something extremely rude.