Seriously? This organization gives away a free IVF treatment, which is nice, but the way they determine who they give it to is to have the couple make a video and post it on the Internet, where people can vote on it. Then of the top candidates one gets chosen by past winners. So basically, you get a kid by either making the saddest video or having the most Internet friends.
This strikes me as bizarre, cruel, and exploitive. The decision should be made privately by a panel that is informed and weighs the candidates based on a rational merit system.
Note that I’m not pitting the candidates themselves who are participating.
I’m guessing the whole point is to get all the social media advertising and word-of-mouth PR, not to find the most worthy candidates to give free services to. Your idea sounds nice, but wouldn’t get them all that sweet, sweet exponential ROI.
I could not agree more. I voted for our lovely couple, 'cause I want them to have a baby, but the whole concept makes me queasy. I had to click really quickly past all the other, I’m sure, lovely people who I know want a baby just as much, and I still feel guilty.
Way to put your marketing department before your patients, asshole. I don’t see this as “I’m giving away free medical care!” I see this as, “I’m going to raise the hopes, yet again, of desperate people who have had their hopes raised and dashed and raised and dashed…and while I’m at it, I’m going to get them to write and produce free advertising for me and get me lots and lots of page views! And if they lose this time, it’s not just because God hates them, it’s because they don’t have enough friends!”
(I also despise those “If we get 1000 Likes on Facebook, we’ll donate $1000!” things…Dude, if you have the $1000, just f-in’ donate it already!)
Or their friends aren’t supportive enough! They didn’t vote as often as the computer would let them, therefore their friends are unfeeling assholes who don’t give a shit about them having a baby.
Again, not ripping on anyone who chooses to participate in this; I’m just really queasy about the whole competition aspect.
I don’t really like the idea. But I voted for our Doper anyway. I guess it’s the new way of doing things. We’ll see a TV show called “Who Wants to Get a New Liver” before long.
I voted for EmAnJ too, but one thing that struck me was how easy it was to vote for who came first alphabetically. Free babies for Aaron and Adele Aardvark, and free heartache for Zach and Zelda Zimmerman!
I agree with this pit thread (re how sad it is that people like us have to enter a contest like this), and am thankful people are still voting for us anyways, thank you.
It’s unfortunate that the cost of IVF is so extraordinary that people feel the need to enter a contest to win a cycle. I guess it really comes back to PR for the company - SIRM is one of the top clinics in the US, so of course it’s about marketing. But, personally, I’m just glad that stuff like this starts the conversation about infertility, even if it’s in this format, because it’s one of those secret diseases for many people/couples.
This is also now a thing in charity work. Companies offer big bucks to charities that garner the most internet votes. My sister is involved in a group funding research in an rare disease, I occasionally get a request from her to vote (or vote every day for X days). It’s sort of disturbing that you have charities competing against each other for money.
OTOH, she says that you get far more bang for your organizing buck in beating the internet drum in one of these contests, than hosting events trying to get people to give you cash out of their pocket. Work the phones and email for a couple of weeks, and you can net 10 grand. Spend 2 months tearing your hair out to organize an event, you net half that, if you’re lucky.
Wow, this is terrible. They are wasting a great reality show concept on a simple internet vote! I want to see weekly challenges, alliances, betrayals, all that good shit.
And one family that loses has to give up a pre-existing kid. You know, just to make things more interesting.
I get that it seems harsh and exploitative, certainly. On the other hand, it’s very expensive, and I’m pretty certain the Dr’s involved also feel for those who it doesn’t ‘take’ for. How could you not? No matter how much you prepped them that, ‘there are no guarantees’, watching them spend tons of money without positive outcome must be heartbreaking. And this seems a way for them to, yes, advertise and get web traffic, but also offer them, just maybe, one extra shot at it, without cost.
I thought about it a lot, after voting, as well. It does seem a little craven. But in the end I decided
it maybe wasn’t quite as cold as I’d first felt.
Doing a free IVF procedure for one couple is a kind thing and you could make the argument that if it helps the clinic make money it helps them do more procedures for other couples. But yes, it feels exploitative and I’m uncomfortable with it. But I did vote for EmAnJ and also voted to approve the thread. I don’t like the entire charity contest concept, but for good or ill, charities have to work very hard to get the word out to the public.
And to be fair to SIRM, they do a lot of gifting of things - for instance, they have a program where they donate free medications to couples that can’t afford it. The clinic here in Calgary has something similar where if they get drug samples of a drug they give it out for free to anyone cycling with that medication. SIRM also offers package deals and discounts once in a while. They are giving a lot of stuff away free, but it is still a business.
It seems to me that it’s the other way around. It’s the procedures they do for other, paying couples that let them run this promotion. This promotion isn’t expanding access to treatment, except potentially for the one winner. This is just advertising like any other. NTTAWWT, and good luck to EmandJ.
I can’t disagree with you, exactly, but at the same time I can’t help but think that if the decision about who to give these services to was made by a dispassionate review committee, Em wouldn’t even be in the running. IIRC she said she’d been pregnant and lost it something like 5 times; whatever is going on in this case, IVF ain’t gonna fix it and the odds of another cycle resulting in a live birth really, really suck. The sensible thing to do would be to select someone whose issue seems to be getting pregnant rather than staying pregnant. At least this way she has a chance.
Although tbh I’m not sure how I feel about that, either. It’s hard for me not to see letting her enter this contest at all as another cycle of raising and dashing her hopes, and should she win and it wind up in yet another loss…that seems like the most drastic cycle of all. It just seems especially cruel.
Is expanding access to treatment for one couple not worth the cost? It’s not like anyone is being forced to participate. I think the whole thing is a bit sleazy, but I bet if you asked the couples participating if they’d rather not have the opportunity they’d say no.
Seriously, they’re not running a charity. They are a for-profit business and using free access to their normally fairly expensive services as a form of advertising.
Or their friends aren’t supportive enough! They didn’t vote as often as the computer would let them, therefore their friends are unfeeling assholes who don’t give a shit about them having a baby.
[/quote]
Anyone taking odds on a ShellyAB after Obama’s re-election style meltdown from people who don’t win? “None of you could be bothered to vote for me or share my video, are you happy now?!?”
This is going to sound incredibly cold-hearted of me and I apologize in advance if it offends, but I have an honest question: if someone can’t afford a cycle of IVF, how do they expect to afford to raise a child, especially if they end up having one with special needs?
