Fertility Treatment and Eugenics

 

Fertility treatment not being covered by health insurance is eugenics.

 

Insurance providers, of course, don't want to cover fertility treatments because they don't want to cover anything. But the lack of public support for making fertility treatments accessible is directly rooted in eugenicist mentality. If you're not independently wealthy enough to pay for fertility treatments out of pocket, society really doesn't think you should have children at all.

Progressives tend not to support access to fertility treatment, both because many progressives are anti-natalist and/or eugenicist (functionally the same thing), and because fertility treatment has a reputation of being "a luxury for the rich" -- which is a direct result of its exclusion from health insurance coverage. 

 

People across the political spectrum also view fertility treatment as "selfish," because they believe that middle-class couples who want to be parents but cannot conceive naturally should instead become adoptive parents. Someone will inevitably mention "So many children waiting for homes." But, at least in the U.S., adoption is even more exorbitantly expensive than fertility treatments -- and while there are indeed so many children waiting for homes, most of them are not legally eligible to be adopted. There are far more aspiring adoptive parents than there are children legally eligible to be adopted in the U.S. Indeed, it is this very disparity between "demand" and "supply" of "adoptable" children that has led to commodifying, eugenicist family law policies which pressure or coerce disabled, marginalized, and low-income parents to surrender their children to abled, middle-class adoptive parents. 

 

Reproduction is a biological process. Fertility treatment is healthcare. It should be available to anyone who wants it, regardless of income, disability, gender, sexuality, or any other factors. 

 

This is also why I say that, no matter how much people may claim otherwise, there is functionally no way to be anti-natalist without also being eugenicist. You may say that you are opposed to anyone, rich or poor, having children, but in reality, rich people will always be free to have as many children as they want. Anti-natalist policies only hinder poor, disabled, and otherwise marginalized people from having children -- i.e., the same desired result as eugenics.