# Why do we treat infertility as if it's cancer? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 2, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226 "2010-11-02T16:43:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/81 "2010-11-02T19:36:04Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I do NOT understand spending thousands and thousands of dollars on IVF and other treatments. Mortgaging their houses and their lives. Putting all of their happiness on hold because they don’t have a child. Sometimes jeopardizing the marriage! And I have heard of all of this from a few of my friends and acquaintances. Very, very few people spend that much on infertility treatments: most stop the process long before they are mortgaging their houses. That said, infertility is much, much cheaper than a child. A round of IVF costs about the same as six months daycare: the price of a round of insemination can cost LESS than the potential monthly increase in a person’s insurance premium when they have a child. I’m actually shocked–shocked–at how inexpensive fertility treatments are. We recently went through an IVF that involved genetically mapping all the chromosomes of our embryos. The cost for that whole part of the procedure–the biopsy of the 3-day embryos, the courier to New York, the analysis with 24 hour turn around–all that cost under $4000. People–middle class people–spend more than that on vacations. There’s nothing crazy with spending that kind of money to make sure your child doesn’t have a painful and debilitating disease. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/82 "2010-11-02T19:36:05Z")
Incidentally, my comparison to cancer came from a recent thread on this board in which a person taking time off from work to get fertility treatments was compared to taking time to get chemotherapy treatments for cancer, which I thought was patently ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/83 "2010-11-02T19:36:54Z")
Having a career as an NFL quarterback is not equivalent to raising a child. And I know this has been explained to you multiple times, but actually it is a disability. Being infertile means that you are not fertile. Fertility is a normal ability of a human body. Lacking that ability is abnormal. Lacking an ability = disability. No, you don’t need a special placard for your car for it, but saying it’s not a disability is simply inaccurate. PS: My “$100,000 fertility treatment” comments above were not intended to imply that I think most fertility treatments cost anywhere near that much. If someone is pursuing multiple IVFs and spending that kind of cash on it, then I am a little bit WTF about that, but in general yes, fertility treatments are quite reasonable and affordable. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/84 "2010-11-02T19:37:58Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > However, comparing the desire to have a baby with the desire to have a sports car is just…tone deaf, at best. If you wrecked your car would you be as upset as if one of your kids was in the hospital? I am guessing no. Not being able to have kids can be a fairly big deal. It’s understandable for people to grieve over losing a child. It’s less understandable to greave over a hypothetical kid that you could have had, but didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/85 "2010-11-02T19:39:17Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I think the strength of desire to have children is something you need to feel to understand. > > I spent most of my 20s without feeling anything for kids. I liked them well enough, but had no real desire to create my own. The idea of getting pregnant and having a kid seemed pretty foreign and not really appealing. > > About a year or so ago, around age 28, some kind of switch flipped. Suddenly, I started feeling this deep desire to have a baby. I’d start imagining myself pregnant, getting weird chills when I saw other people’s babies, etc. I have no doubts this is almost entirely biological. Intellectually nothing has changed and it will be a while before I can think seriously about actually having one (I know that’s cutting it close…but what else can I do?) But I still wake up with this sort of weird ache in my heart. > > Honestly, before this happened I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t picture it. But when your body talks to you, it’s unmistakable. Only one other time have I felt a biological message so strongly- when I had malaria my lizard brain told me in clear terms “You will be dead soon” Luckily my lizard-brain didn’t know much about moder medicine. This was true for me also. I never got the whole OMG babies thing until something switched on for me around age 26. Then it was on my brain all the time. I explained it to my husband by telling him, “think about how much you thought about sex pre vs. post puberty. I am now ‘post baby-puberty.’” Sure, some of it is conditioning but a lot is biology too, like sex. People want sex even if they don’t grow up in a sex-crazed culture. I do think the analogies to having to live a sex-free life are apt. It is not a ‘tragedy’ in the sense that people do it all the time, people even choose to do it, but for some people it is harder than others, and it is a loss. Some people have more of a drive than others, for some it is about the cuddling, but others really want that biological urge satisfied. It is not the same as wanting a material possession, and I don’t think spending the money on a house or college is morally superior to spending it on a baby. Money is money, it is only worth what it gets you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/86 "2010-11-02T19:39:28Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Having a career as an NFL quarterback is not equivalent to raising a child. > > And I know this has been explained to you multiple times, but actually it is a disability. Being infertile means that you are not fertile. Fertility is a normal ability of a human body. Lacking that ability is abnormal. Lacking an ability = disability. No, you don’t need a special placard for your car for it, but saying it’s not a disability is simply inaccurate. I lack an ability to dunk, therefore I’m disabled too. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/87 "2010-11-02T19:40:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I played basketball and football into jr. high school and really liked them, but I was also really short and skinny and couldn’t keep up once I got too small and everybody else got too big. My dream of playing quarterback in the NFL was dashed by my genetic puniness. I see being infertile as being akin to being short. It’s limiting, I guess, but it’s not a disability or a disease. What % of the population folks play sports at an elite level and consider it part of their genetic destiny? A slightly 😉 smaller % vs. those who have/want to have children. Apples and wrenches. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/88 "2010-11-02T19:40:22Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I lack an ability to dunk, therefore I’m disabled too. The ability to dunk is not a biological function that everyone’s body normally has. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/89 "2010-11-02T19:42:36Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > It’s understandable for people to grieve over losing a child. > > It’s less understandable to greave over a hypothetical kid that you could have had, but didn’t. OK, but can you understand being bummed out about it? Because what I’m hearing from you and **Dio** is, “It’s not a disability, there’s not even anything wrong with it, so I don’t get why people are upset at all.” There’s a middle ground between “deserving of sympathy akin to a loved one dying” and “deserving of no sympathy whatsoever.” ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/90 "2010-11-02T19:45:50Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Pretty much everybody. It is a social expectation that these people are deserving of a sympathy reserved for terminally ill people. No they don’t. No it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/91 "2010-11-02T19:46:07Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Incidentally, my comparison to cancer came from a recent thread on this board in which a person taking time off from work to get fertility treatments was compared to taking time to get chemotherapy treatments for cancer, which I thought was patently ridiculous. I think comparing things like this are always ridiculous. ‘My hardship is worse than your hardship’ serves no purpose. ETA: I also agree with those saying in general, I don’t see people saying being infertile is the same as being terminally ill. I have friends who have gone through fertility treatments and people were sympathetic, but nowhere near the level of people I know who have cancer. But on a message board, you are bound to see extremes I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/92 "2010-11-02T19:46:27Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > OK, but can you understand being bummed out about it? Because what I’m hearing from you and **Dio** is, “It’s not a disability, there’s not even anything wrong with it, so I don’t get why people are upset at all.” > > There’s a middle ground between “deserving of sympathy akin to a loved one dying” and “deserving of no sympathy whatsoever.” Yes, I agree with that. I’m not saying they should get no sympathy at all, I’m saying that I think the pressure is to show disproportionate sympathy, akin to a person having a terminal disease. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/93 "2010-11-02T19:51:28Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > OK, but can you understand being bummed out about it? Because what I’m hearing from you and **Dio** is, “It’s not a disability, there’s not even anything wrong with it, so I don’t get why people are upset at all.” > > There’s a middle ground between “deserving of sympathy akin to a loved one dying” and “deserving of no sympathy whatsoever.” I guess I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here. On the one hand, I don’t want to appear like an insensitive jerk. But on the other hand, I don’t want to encourage in any way the belief that child free people are somehow deficient. Offering condolences seems to me to be buying into that belief, and possibly contributing to the distress that some infertile people feel about themselves. As a matter of fact, I think people are probably going to be happier in the long run if they don’t have kids, even if they feel distress about it right now. The study I cited earlier said that parents aren’t any happier than non-parents. Parents actually have a higher rate of depression! ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/94 "2010-11-02T19:52:47Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Yes, I agree with that. I’m not saying they should get no sympathy at all, I’m saying that I think the pressure is to show disproportionate sympathy, akin to a person having a terminal disease. I agree with that…it seems odd that you feel that kind of pressure. I have never seen an infertile couple get the kind of support/sympathy a person who is terminally ill gets (or even a person with cancer who is not terminal.) I would expect that if you gave anyone the choice of being infertile vs. being terminally ill with cancer, 99% of people would choose infertility. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/95 "2010-11-02T19:54:20Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I guess I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here. On the one hand, I don’t want to appear like an insensitive jerk. But on the other hand, I don’t want to encourage in any way the belief that child free people are somehow deficient. No one has averred that child-free persons are deficient, at least not that I have seen. We have asserted that persons who wish to beget biological children and are unable to do so are grieved by that, and that such grief is legitimate. Persons in this category don’t consider themselves _child free_, because they want to have children. We’re not saying that _you_ should want to have children. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/96 "2010-11-02T19:55:33Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I guess I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here. On the one hand, I don’t want to appear like an insensitive jerk. But on the other hand, I don’t want to encourage in any way the belief that child free people are somehow deficient. Offering condolences seems to me to be buying into that belief, and possibly contributing to the distress that some infertile people feel about themselves. You can offer sympathy just because they are suffering/sad without implying they are deficient, I think. I don’t think anyone _wants_ people to feel bad about themselves if they can’t have biological children, yet it is still understandable that they do feel bad. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/97 "2010-11-02T19:58:40Z")
Haven’t we done this before? [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=578828&highlight=infertility&page=3](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=578828&highlight=infertility&page=3) Infertility is classified as a “disability” under US federal law - even where the underlying condition is ameliorated. [http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/articles/4595/1/Infertility-is-considered-a-disability-under-ADA/Page1.html#](http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/articles/4595/1/Infertility-is-considered-a-disability-under-ADA/Page1.html#) > [@](#): > > Employees who are infertile may qualify for reasonable accommodations under the ADA. That’s true even if the underlying medical condition that caused the infertility has been cured. As a result, you may be required to give infertile employees time off for fertility treatments and even adoption planning. You may disagree with it, but the reason why people treat infertility as a disability is pretty clear - it is the impairment of a normal bodily function, not a normal range of function. And legally, it _is_ a disability, at least in the US. Obviously, it is not one deserving of sympathy like a terminal disease - but I have yet to see any evidence that anyone actually claims it is. I’d say it certainly is worthy of some sympathy, if a person is bummed out about it, similar to if they had no ability to have sex for a medical reason (but wanted to). ---
**Author:** ![Neeps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a183cd/32.png) [@Neeps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neeps)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/98 "2010-11-02T20:05:51Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Yes, I agree with that. I’m not saying they should get no sympathy at all, I’m saying that I think the pressure is to show disproportionate sympathy, akin to a person having a terminal disease. I still don’t know what social circles you run in where a) people are openly talking about their infertility and b) where the expectation is that people are going to be fawning over them in sympathy. The idea that we are expecting the same level of sympathy as someone with a terminal disease is…laughable. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/99 "2010-11-02T20:07:35Z")
> [@Velma](#): > > This was true for me also. I never got the whole OMG babies thing until something switched on for me around age 26. Then it was on my brain all the time. I explained it to my husband by telling him, “think about how much you thought about sex pre vs. post puberty. I am now ‘post baby-puberty.’” Sure, some of it is conditioning but a lot is biology too, like sex. People want sex even if they don’t grow up in a sex-crazed culture. I can understand the desire for sex being biological (babies being a natural by product of sex, of course), but I don’t see how the desire for a baby (which is separated from the act that produces it by nine months) would have evolved evolutionarily. It’s very difficult to disentangle what’s biological versus what is cultural, since every functioning human being is influenced by the culture they live in. And (not surprisingly) the cultures that survive tend to be the ones that encourage reproduction. I don’t think “baby fever” is any more biological than the “midlife crisis.” It’s just that people get to be a certain age, and either conciously or unconciously they assess their life goals versus what they’ve done so far. If there’s a gap between the two that can cause distress. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226/100 "2010-11-02T20:11:29Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Thank you for making my case for me. This is exactly the kind of bullshit I’m talking about. you think this makes the point that the infertile are treated the same as the terminally ill? you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-treat-infertility-as-if-its-cancer/559226.md?page=6)