The Costs of Using Artificial Reproductive Technology

Since the first birth using In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) happened in 1978, IVF and many other Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ART) came to be a way for infertile/sub-fertile couples to finally have the family they always dreamed of (Katz, 2002). However, in 2019 our technology has advanced enough for these couples to not only start a family, but for them to have the opportunity to choose the sex of their baby, choose its hair/eye color, and even remove the chance of acquiring heritable diseases.

ART is a mind-blowing technology, but it is still relatively new, and there are many ethical concerns that come with it. Overall, the goal of ART is to have the healthiest baby you could ask for, but does the goal outweigh the cost? Couples are put through financial, physical, and psychological burdens that start before the child is born, and the effects can last long after the baby is delivered. Assessing these effects are important to the couples who are contemplating going through an ART process, so they can make the decision that is best for them.

When you have a child there are medical bills and fees that need to be paid for. Some of these expenses are prenatal care, checkups, epidural, the delivery, and the hospital stay. These expenses are several thousands of dollars, and they can be more if the parents do not have health insurance. Couples who use ART not only cover these basic expenses when having a child, but they also have to pay for the procedure which allows them to reproduce.

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In 2006, the average cost for one fresh ART cycle in the United States was $13,048 (Kissin, 2017). Also, a few years later it was found that in 2012 an, “average ART treatment costs to be $15,715 per fresh cycle and $3,812 per frozen cycle,” (Crawford, 2015). A fresh embryo cycle is when they insert the embryo days after the egg retrieval process, and a frozen embryo cycle uses thawed embryos that were collected before. Anyways, many couples who use ART don’t have that money in savings, and to cover these expenses they usually take out loans. Taking out loans for an ART treatment is a similar situation that a woman named Simpson and her husband described in an article titled, “Gender Selection Has Become a Multimillion-Dollar Industry.”

In this extraordinary case Simpson always wanted a baby girl, and after she had two boys with her husband they looked into ART to make sure that it would happen. They first paid $800 at a fertility clinic in Michigan to get the husband’s sperm sorted into only X and Y chromosomes, (Macleod, 2012). She was then inseminated with the presumption that she would be having a girl. Months later she went to get an ultrasound only to find out that the procedure didn’t exactly work, and that she was having another boy.

Years later she went to the Laguna Hills branch of the Huntington Reproductive Center in California to try to have a girl, and found that all the embryos they fertilized from her were chromosomally abnormal, making them unusable. In a last attempt she withdrew a $15,000 line of credit to pay for another trip to California, and she had preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) done (Macleod, 2012). PGD is a procedure where the embryo is genetically tested before being implanted. This procedure allows for doctors and parents to choose the embryos that have the right set of genes and chromosomes they want, so in this case they made sure that the embryo they picked would grow into a baby girl. This time the procedure worked, and Simpson was pregnant with a baby girl.

In an almost four-year journey Simpson and her husband spent $40,000 (Macleod, 2012). This is a huge amount of money that not a lot of couples are able to pay. In Simpson’s situation she had to work six days a week right up until the delivery and months afterward to repay all the loans she took (Macleod, 2012). Having a daughter took a financial toll on Simpson and her husband, and that is something that couples like them have to decide on. Having her baby girl, regardless of the cost was worth it to Simpson. She said that, “My husband and I stared at our daughter for that first year. She was worth every cent. Better than a new car, or a kitchen Reno,” (Macleod, 2012). For couple’s going through ART having a child is worth everything you put into it, but it is still important to assess how it could put you at financial risk. If this choice would negatively affect you over an extended amount of time, then you and your partner might want to look at alternate options.

As mentioned from the past few paragraphs Simpson and her story is an extraordinary case, but when it comes down to it not every ART treatment resolves in that way. Some couples don’t go through multiple cycles like Simpson did. Sometimes they are lucky enough to have a successful treatment on their first attempt. The odds of this happening though are not very likely. For a woman who is under 35 years old and is going through an ART treatment the chance of having a normal birth weight singleton live birth is 21% (CDC, 2016).

These odds are low and they only become lower as the woman ages. To help combat the low odds and the high prices many people have looked into alternate options, such as traveling out of the country. In countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan their costs are lower than that found in the United States. In 2006, it was found that the directs costs of one fresh ART treatment cycle was $11,251.35 in the US, $7,642.47 in Canada, $4,536.23 in the UK, and $3,556.92 in Japan (Connolly, 2010). With these lowered costs in other countries many couples can go on a small vacation, get the ART treatment while they are there, and save money in the process.

When a woman becomes pregnant, her body goes through many changes. Some of these changes might cause discomfort, but it is natural and it is the body’s way of preparing for the baby. Women who go through ART go through these very same changes, but before the pregnancy their bodies have to go through something completely different. These women have to go through the discomforts of having their eggs retrieved from their ovaries, and then have them transferred back into her uterus for pregnancy.

In a study about the impact IVF has on the emotional, physical, and relational aspects on women, they reported that, “physical discomfort, specifically breast tenderness and abdominal pain, was significant and most pronounced at the time of oocyte retrieval,” (Boivin, 1996). These pains should be reduced as much as possible to make the treatment more comfortable for the woman going through it. It was also recorded that for 20% of women, their daily activities were interfered by the pains they had through the procedure, (Boivin, 1996). Also, to induce super-ovulation they have daily hormone injections that can be uncomfortable and painful (Baylis, 2013). These injections can cause cramping, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloating, mood changes and irritability (Baylis, 2013). Women going through IVF, and other ART procedures subject their bodies to uncomfortable and painful experiences that can develop into even greater problems.

For any couple trying to have children, it is always disheartening for another cycle to pass, and to not be pregnant. Every couple that is in that situation has a basic idea of how that feels, but for couples who use ART these feelings are much worse. Not only are they hoping for a child, but couples who use ART invest their time, money, and themselves physically, and if the procedure is unsuccessful it can often lead to depression and anxiety in both men and women. According to a study, “females and men entering ART programs have high expectations of achieving a successful outcome which may result in disappointment if ART treatment fails,” (Milazzo, 2016). Also, in a different study that accessed patients who have had failed infertility treatments using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) found that, “Patients with infertility have increased depression and anxiety after infertility treatment failure (Maroufizadeh, 2015). Both articles found that there were negative effects to failed ART treatments. If the ART treatment is unsuccessful, all the hope and aspirations of having a child collapses and it can lead to negative psychological outcomes. That is never the intended outcome, but sometimes that is the sad reality.

According to ScienceDaily, “the term quality of life (QOL) references the general well-being of individuals and societies.” You want your QOL to be as high as possible, but infertile individuals have a harder time in doing so. It was discovered that, “infertile women have a worse QOL compared to both infertile men and non-infertile controls,” (Agonsti, 2017). This is due to most people’s longing and want to have children. That is why I think that ART is important to help couples have children and to make the best of their lives. For many couples having a child is a great thing that boosts their QOL. This effect is even more prominent for infertile couples going through ART since they have already been trying for so long. Thanks to ART infertile couples are able to have children and experience one of life’s greatest adventures.

In conclusion, ART is an amazing thing that allows infertile and sub-fertile couples to finally bear offspring. Raising a child is one of life’s greatest adventures, and it is amazing how technology has advanced enough to give someone who is infertile without it that possibility. Couples looking through ART have to subject themselves to the financial, physical, and psychological burdens associated with it. It is important to know the effects ART has on couples and to plan accordingly if you were looking into it. Overall couples who go through ART believe that their child was worth all the time, every penny, and pain they went through (Macleod, 2012). If you are infertile it is important to assess the effects that ART can have and from there you can decide on if the reward is greater than the cost.