Got the IVF letter (22/3 entry) published in today’s The Age:
Needs versus wants
Lisa Campbell (Letters, 21/3) needs to learn the distinction between needs and wants (hers are the latter). Infertility is not a disfiguring, painful or life-threatening condition. Before IVF, people had to deal with infertility and find other means of fulfilment. Taxpayers’ money should not be used to bring people into an already overpopulated world who would not otherwise be here – there are far more urgent social programs that need funding.
A related article from 22/3 Herald-Sun:
IVF babies warning
British couples having IVF treatment will be warned for the first time that their children have a higher risk of genetic flaws and health problems.
IVF babies may be up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from heart valve defects, cleft lip and palate and digestive system abnormalities. They also have an increased risk of rare genetic disorders such as Angelman syndrome.
One reason for infertility in older women and men is poor-quality eggs or sperm (which decline as they age), so they obviously should not be passing these defects on. Another reason for men:
Infertility caused by DNA defects on the Y chromosome is passed on from father to son. If natural selection is the primary error correction mechanism that prevents random mutations on the Y chromosome, then fertility treatments for men with abnormal sperm (in particular ICSI) only defer the underlying problem to the next male generation. (Wikipedia: Infertility)
“Britain set to become most populous country in EU”, Guardian, 22/3. Britain is going to be an increasingly unpleasant place to live in as it gets ever-more overcrowded. Exacerbating the problem is the thousands of refugees anticipated as a result of climate change.
In addition, there is the issue of humanitarian responsibility. Britain is likely to be one of the few nations to survive the worst effects of climate change while other nations, particularly those in the developing world, have their farmland and fishing grounds destroyed. It could be argued that the UK has a moral duty to provide shelter for as many refugees as our shores can support.
It could also be argued that Britain has a greater responsibility to its own citizens first and foremost, and should not take in more people than it can handle.
But many climatologists believe that by then life on the planet will already have become dangerously unpleasant. Temperature rises will have started to have devastating impacts on farmland, water supplies and sea levels. Humans – increasing both in numbers and dependence on food from devastated landscapes – will then come under increased pressure. The end result will be apocalyptic, said Lovelock. By the end of the century, the world’s population will suffer calamitous declines until numbers are reduced to around 1 billion or less. “By 2100, pestilence, war and famine will have dealt with the majority of humans,” he said.
One of the few places to survive the worst impacts will be Britain. “Our climate will be one of the least affected by global warming,” added Lovelock. “As a result, everyone will want to live here. We will become one of the world’s lifeboats. The trouble, of course, will be that, even if we wanted to, we will not be able to pick up everyone. There will be some hard decisions to make.”
If governments of the least-afflicted countries wish their societies to survive, they will have to be brutally pragmatic.
