| Together with the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights (EPF), ESHRE’s patient partner organisation Fertility Europe has recently launched a a White Paper on the Imperative of Equal Access to Fertility Treatments across Europe, including the following 12 key recommendations to policy makers: 1) Creating safe and inclusive regulations considering the rights of all parties – people who need medical help to conceive, children, donors and surrogates. 2) Guaranteeing legal access to treatment without any form of discrimination to all who need it. 3) Establishing and maintaining a legal obligation for EBM (Evidence-Based Medicine) treatments to be provided by all medical centres. 4) Providing sufficient funding for the whole range of treatments that allow people a reasonable chance to have children. 5) Implementing the best practice in legal frameworks and systemic support enabling donor-conceived children to safe ways of learning about their genetic origins. 6) Offering psychological support to deal with infertility before, during and after active treatment. 7) Maintaining regular and respectful communication of the policymakers with the patients’ organisations to ensure that all legal provisions are meeting the patients’ needs. 8) Including fertility as part of comprehensive sexuality education in secondary school curriculum to equip young people with knowledge. 9) Establishing public information campaigns on fertility and reproductive health at every age for every person. 10) Creating a consistent method of collecting data about infertility prevalence and involuntary childlessness. 11) Providing demographic analysis to understand and assess the impact of fertility treatment funding on society and demographics. 12) Creating a central and mandatory European register of all treatments and donations. Fertility Europe is currently gathering support for these messages through a Call to Action. All support will not only provide hope and assistance to those in need, but also reinforce the need for Europe to commit to inclusive healthcare and social support systems. To access the full White Paper and endorse the Call to Action, please visit https://fertilityeurope.eu/about-fe/our-mission/white-paper2023/ |
