Nearly a fifth of
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), bodies which are
in charge of commissioning local health services in the UK, offer fertility
treatment to women even if they are not married or in a long-term relationship,
according to a report in the Daily Mail.

And the same
proportion give IVF to the over-40s despite the fact that this is contrary to
NHS guidelines.

Under NHS guidelines,
PCTs should pay for couples aged 23 to 39 to have three courses of IVF – which
each cost between £4,000 and £8,000 – if they are struggling to conceive
naturally.

But 24 out of the 135
PCTs surveyed for the investigation will give single women IVF, even if they are
not in a relationship.

Under a law
introduced by Labour in 2008, doctors no longer have to consider the ‘need for a
father’. Women only have to give assurance that they can provide ‘supportive
parenting’.

Meanwhile, critics
have warned a move to treble the compensation given to women who donate eggs for
IVF and other Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) techniques could commercialise
the process.

The Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates the fertility
industry in the UK, has decided to pay a one-off fee of £750 per course of
donation. Donors currently have their expenses paid and up to £250 to cover lost
earnings.

But Olivia Montuschi
of the Donor Conception Network, a self-help network of donors and families of
children conceived by egg or sperm donation, said she was deeply disappointed by
the HFEA decision.

“It will be something
you will come to regret,” she said. “The perception will be that you are paying
donors. £750 would make a huge difference to a young
woman.”

Dr David King,
Director of Human Genetics Alert, said it will create a financial incentive for
women.

“Ethically, it’s
wrong to make part of the human body a commodity,” he said. “The body should not
be part of commerce.”

Josephine
Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: “Egg harvesting is an
invasive and dangerous process and women should not be induced with ever larger
sums of money to incur such risks.”

The move comes after
Professor Lisa Jardine, the head of HFEA, suggested that the ban on selling
sperm and eggs should be reconsidered to address a shortage of
donors.

In 2009, Professor
Jardine told the London Times that payments to donors might reduce the number of
couples travelling abroad for fertility treatment.

New rules brought in
in 2005, which mean that the children of sperm and egg donors can trace their
donor parents and strict rules against payments have meant that fewer people are
now donating their sperm and eggs for fertility treatment
services.

The rules were
brought in after a court case taken by Dr Joanna Rose established that children
conceived by sperm or egg donation had a right to be able to trace their genetic
heritage.

The number of
treatment cycles using donated eggs fell by 25 per cent between 2004 and 2006;
the number of women using donated sperm fell by 30 per cent. These trends have
convinced Professor Jardine that the authority should reconsider its 2006 ruling
that donors can get up to £250 in expenses but no direct
payments.

In a significant
number of cases they travel abroad for treatment, often to Spain or the United
States, where payments are higher and more women
volunteer.

But there can be
risks involved with having treatment in countries where regulations are less
stringent.

Egg donation is an
invasive process, which involves daily hormone injections, scans every couple of
days, and day surgery to recover the eggs.

Side-effects range
from mood swings, bloating and pain, to rare but severe over-reactions to the
hormones.