Today, to my surprise, I found a whole bunch of articles relating to the TV ad for a New Zealand bank, ASB, that is offering loans for IVF. I wrote an article about it here.
These are some of the more interesting ones I found:
- http://bioethicscentre.posterous.com/are-banks-wrongfully-exploiting-the-childless
 - http://www.rsiinfertilityblog.com/2010/12/02/poor-taste-in-ivf-ad-from-new-zealand/
 - http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=5032&blogid=140
 
Just interesting to see that I wasn't the only one who reacted strongly to these ads.
Amongst all the bad stuff:
- IVF is expensive
 - And emotionally taxing
 - And there is not enough public funding in NZ for it
 - And access to that funding is very strict and unfair
 - Maybe the ad is exploiting infertile people?
 - And it's definitely not realistic - very much rosy-tinted glasses material
 - Such as being able to afford a loan - that means that one of the parents is wealthy enough on a single income to look after the whole family while the Mum is on maternity leave etc... Not very realistic, for us at least.
 - And they get triplets! NZ has a single embryo transfer policy for public funded treatments
 - Then they have enough money for a new car!
 
Was some good news:
- ASB (the bank who made the advert) has raised the awareness of infertility in New Zealand
 - This could in turn make people aware that IVF/infertility treatments are very expensive, and more public funding is desperately needed here.
 
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