European Fertility Week 2020 calls for equal access to fertility treatments across Europe
Fertility Europe’s 2020 European Fertility Week (EFW2020) will take place from 2-8 November with the theme “Equal access to fertility treatments across Europe. Is your country supporting everyone’s right to try and have a child?”
Ahead of the publication of the European Commission’s Pharmaceutical Strategy later this month, which brings equal access to safe, state-of-the-art therapies among its pillars, the EFW2020 will shed a special light on the uneven access to fertility treatments across Europe. More often than not, these barriers to access are a consequence of cultural, ideological, or economic restrictions rather than medical justifications based on the safety of patients, children, or donors.
“Infertility remains widely misunderstood, despite affecting as many as 25 million EU citizens. It is the forgotten side of sexual and reproductive health. We call on health authorities across Europe to ensure citizens’ right to access fertility screening and treatment, and to ensure that reliable information be made available about factors that influence one’s own fertility” says Satu Rautakallio-Hokkanen, Fertility Europe’s Executive Committee Chair.
This year’s campaign will address several challenges faced by infertility patients. For example, some countries still ban the access to fertility treatments for certain patient groups, like single women, and same sex couples. In other cases, stigma itself gets in the way, which is often the case with male infertility. 25% of males in an infertile couple do not undergo a male reproduction evaluation, despite male factor infertility occurring in 40% of infertile couples.
“We believe that equitable access to fertility screening, treatment and information is a matter of equality as much as it is a public health issue. Fertility treatments of scientifically-proven benefit to patients should be made available irrespective of the patient’s age, sexual orientation or marital status. We are dealing citizens’ right to make informed decisions for their lives when it comes to constituting a family” added Ms Rautakallio-Hokkanen.
To further illustrate this challenge, Fertility Europe is also developing a Fertility Treatment Atlas together with the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights (EPF), which will reflect the disparities in access to the most important fertility treatments availability in Europe. The Atlas will be published early next year.
ABOUT THE EUROPEAN FERTILITY WEEK
The European Fertility Week was launched in 2016 to bring to light the rarely talked about
fertility dilemma in Europe. Fertility Europe’s Call to Action to EU policy-makers is at the centre of the campaign and awareness-raising efforts.
ABOUT FERTILITY EUROPE
Fertility Europe is the Pan-European organisation representing patients’ associations dedicated to infertility, enabling a network for those concerned with fertility problems, patient empowerment, engaging other stakeholders and the media. Fertility Europe is based in Brussels. It counts with 25 member associations from 23 countries and is a patient partner organisation of ESHRE.
