Hansard

I echo what other members have said. I thank Mary Scanlon for initiating an important debate. In my professional career as a doctor, I worked in community paediatrics, so I did not deal directly with infertility cases. However, I dealt with such cases indirectly, as I was for a time a medical adviser to the adoption panel in the Highlands.

The panel dealt with many couples who had undergone failed IVF treatment and the trauma of that. They were becoming older and had realised that adoption was the way that they might have a family. Sometimes, couples were still undergoing treatment during assessment as adoptive parents. They were put on hold while the IVF continued, so they experienced the trauma of worrying about whether the IVF would succeed and of thinking that they might be missing the chance of a placement of a child for adoption.

Mary Scanlon described infertility as a life-affecting issue, but I think that it is more than that; it can be a life-destroying issue. I would strongly take issue with anyone who said that treatment should not be available to everybody on the NHS, but I do not think that anybody would say that. It is up to us to make that provision available.

Mary Scanlon mentioned societal changes that might lead to an increase in infertility, such as the fact that women delay child rearing for reasons such as career issues. She also referred to the debt generation. I was talking casually to somebody up in the Highlands who said that his daughter, who is in her early 20s, has so much debt from her student days that she will be unable to consider having a family and taking a career break for years. He described that, perhaps in a rather extreme way, as a sort of genocide that was being perpetrated on that stratum of society—the people who have been students and who cannot consider becoming parents for many years until they pay off their debt.

Chlamydia, which has been mentioned, is another issue. I will not go into that, because other members have, but I echo the comment that we will not have good reproductive rates unless we have good sexual health, which is crucial in society.

Mary Scanlon mentioned the falling sperm count. I do not want to stray too far from the debate's purpose, but we must take that matter seriously. Evidence is increasing that at least one factor in the falling sperm count is toxic pollution in our environment. Many of the toxic chemicals that are found everywhere in our environment are known to be hormone disrupting.

At present, the REACH legislation—it concerns the registration, evaluation and something that I never remember of chemicals—is being gradually processed through all the European Parliament's committees. The chemicals industry is exerting great pressure for that legislation to be diluted, but we should resist that, as, indeed, the UK Government has so far. I have told the Scottish Executive—as have others, to ensure that our views are known at the UK level—that the regulations should be as stringent as possible and that we should try to phase out potentially hormone-disrupting chemicals for the good of future generations.

Someone touched on the slightly unfortunate publicity in the papers about a much older woman in another country who had been given infertility treatment. However, I do not think that that would happen here.

When I was looking up information for the debate, I rather extravagantly downloaded and printed off the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's document "Tomorrow's children: A consultation on guidance to licensed fertility clinics on taking in account the welfare of children to be born of assisted conception treatment". Some of the advice that it contains is obvious and has been known for years, such as checking that neither parent has a record of child abuse. However, other issues are addressed—for example, the welfare of children who are born to certain family structures. The document states that the families' structure seems to have less effect than their standard of living and that poverty is much more important than how the family is structured. Particularly, children who are born by assisted conception to lesbian parents do well. That is worth saying, as the research is evidence based.

I very much welcome the debate. I believe that, in a civilised society such as we hope we have in Scotland, treatment for this distressing condition or group of conditions should be available to everybody, irrespective of where they live and what their income is.