For the past six weeks, I've been reporting on the fertility care industry for @qz. What I've concluded is that capitalism has completely taken over this market and turned it into a luxury good. A thread: 1/x qz.com/guide/fertilit…
@qz Fertility care—which started with IVF but has expanded to so much more—is the flip side to reproductive rights. It's the right to HAVE children, regardless of your social or biological situation. 2/x qz.com/1817726/how-fe…
@qz In a lot of ways, it means that folks who would normally never be able to have kids can: Single people, older people with ovaries, LGBTQ+ couples, or people with some kind of other medical issue. The problem is that in most places, it's not covered by insurance. 3/x
@qz Fertility care requires a sterile environment. Not a hospital setting. So clinics can pop up anywhere—provided they have the $100k - $200k to do so. They've gotta make that money back 4/x
@qz It's not that hard to do so—IVF costs ~$20k in the US including medications, and most folks need multiple rounds. AND because insurance doesn't cover it, that's all money straight into the clinics' pocket. 5/x
@qz Plus, you've got people who are usually already worried about having a kid; if they can, they will pay anything to increase their chances of having a baby. Which means prices stay stubbornly high. 6/x
Other countries DO have some public coverage of SOME fertility care. But it depends on the country, and what countries cover may not be enough for some folks. Others may want to get in faster; wait times of over a year may direct folks to the private market 7/x
And the science still isn't great yet—for people with ovaries under 35, it works about 50% of the time, but those rates decrease with age. Can you imagine going in for another medical procedure, like a knee replacement, and being told you may need 3? That's the reality of it 8/x
BUT fertility care has afforded so many folks the chance to build their families!! My favorite story was looking at the latest science that can help trans folks have kids. I had the privilege of speaking with @Biffandi for this story: qz.com/1818165/fertil… 9/x
There's also a FASCINATING debate about the use of pre-implantation genetic testing. It can be great for some people because it could save them time in deciding which embryos to transfer, but it also may result in the discard of healthy embryos. qz.com/1817387/the-po… 10/x
There ARE ways for fertility costs to come down. Insurance could cover it; right now, private benefits managing markets are swooping in to fill that void. And scientists have already figured out ways to lower the costs of IVF in a non-lab setting. qz.com/1817408/three-… 11/x
If you have no idea what I'm talking about with ANY fertility care, you should check out this very easy to read explainer of what this stuff is, and what people's options are. HT to @sadbumblebee for this handy visual guide 12/x qz.com/1817411/fertil…
Every day this week, I'm going to thread out more details of each story. Got questions? Reply to this thread or DM me, and I'll include answers. I'm sending a special edition of Scrap Facts on 3/19 focused on the series. Happy reading! 13/13 qz.com/1817726/how-fe…
