Dear CDC: all is forgiven!

Dear CDC: all is forgiven! October 25, 2016

https://pixabay.com/en/ivf-fertility-infertility-icsi-1514174/

Twice in the past, I’ve written about ways in which the CDC’s definitions go against international norms, making the U.S. appear worse than comparator countries.  First, the CDC defines maternal mortality much more expansively than the WHO, making our maternal mortality rates look far worse.  And, second, the CDC has a much more expansive definition of “pre-diabetes” than the WHO, catching more people up in the web of medical interventions.

But in the news today is an action that the WHO is taking that makes me relieved that the CDC doesn’t march in lock-step with them:  they are defining infertility not as a medical condition but as the social circumstance of not having a suitable partner.

As reported in the Telegraph (UK), linked to by the National Review, among others,

Single men and women without medical issues will be classed as “infertile” if they do not have children but want to become a parent, the World Health Organisation is to announce.

In a move which dramatically changes the definition of infertility, the WHO will declare that it should no longer be regarded as simply a medical condition.

The authors of the new global standards said the revised definition gave every individual “the right to reproduce”. . . .

But the new standard suggests that the inability to find a suitable sexual partner – or the lack of sexual relationships which could achieve conception – could be considered an equal disability. . . .

Dr David Adamson, one of the authors of the new standards, said: “The definition of infertility is now written in such a way that it includes the rights of all individuals to have a family, and that includes single men, single women, gay men, gay women.

“It puts a stake in the ground and says an individual’s got a right to reproduce whether or not they have a partner. It’s a big change.

“It fundamentally alters who should be included in this group and who should have access to healthcare. It sets an international legal standard. Countries are bound by it.”

Now, to be sure, there’s nothing on the WHO website itself, which still contains the “standard” definition, shared by the CDC, of infertility as measured by the inability of a noncontracepting couple to conceive in a year’s time.  And I’m unable to find anything out there on the web in terms of a press release or other formal statement of this guideline.  Did Dr. Adamson (a prominent fertility specialist in California) speak out of turn, about a document that hasn’t been signed off, in order to attempt to push the document towards being a “done deal” when it hasn’t actually been signed off on?

What are the implications of this change?  The Telegraph article says that, in the UK, this could mean that the government would be required to cover fertility treatments for everyone and, what’s more, would be obliged to legalize commercial surrogacy, that is, so that gay men could father a child without a “mother.”  Would they be obliged to pay for it, too?  Would they be required to fund artificial insemination for women, and eliminate their existing rules that prohibit payments (other than expenses) for eggs or sperm?  Apparently, Dr. Adamson’s comments notwithstanding:

A Department of Health spokesman said it would consider the WHO’s final advice when published but the NHS was under no obligation to follow it.

And the U.S.?  We can only hope that the CDC this time also refrains from copying the WHO precedent!

 

image from pixabay; https://pixabay.com/en/ivf-fertility-infertility-icsi-1514174/; public domain


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