Infertility affects 15 to 20% of couples worldwide, around 300,000 in Portugal
The current economic situation has aggravated the financial incapacity that “many women and couples” already suffered to access infertility treatments, being forced to give up the dream of having a child, warned this Monday, November 7, the Portuguese Association of Fertility.
“The issue becomes dramatic” when it comes to women who have already exceeded the age limit for accessing treatments in the National Health Service, 40 or 42 years old, depending on the techniques, said the executive director of APFertilidade, Joana Freire, in a press conference. written response to the Lusa agency regarding the European Fertility Week, which started today.
Joana Freire recalled that the pandemic had already had an equally negative effect on the lives of these people, now worsened by the economic crisis.
“Not everyone can count on the financial support of family or friends or take out loans to try to make their dream of having children come true. Private treatments can reach several thousand euros and these women and men have to deal with the end of a path that they started, many times, several years ago”, stressed the official.
For these cases, she said, “there is no answer, only one option, never an imposition: adoption.” “Their primary goal is to have biological children and they shouldn’t be thrown the ‘you can always adopt’ answer. It is not up to them to assume this social responsibility, but to be a mother and father from the heart if they want to”, defended Joana Freire.
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