Report Says Test-Tube Babies Profitable Business For Governments
Monday, December 01, 2008
By Robert Duncan
As Europe's population grays, some advocates say instead of seeking traditional measures to foment marriage and offspring, governments instead should be increasing funding for in vitro fertilizations.
Europe's population is swiftly aging with projections forecasting one third of all inhabitants to be older than 65 years old in 2050, versus every sixth person today. An answer to propping Europe's beleaguered pension and health care plans could be found in increased funding for in vitro fertilizations, claims a recent report. Test-tube babies are an investment for the future, not an expense, claims an article published in the "Scandinavian Journal of Public Health."
The Catholic Church is opposed to in vitro fertilization. According to the No. 2377 in the Church's Catechism, such methods of reproduction “dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses’ union.”
But according to the report's authors the question isn't about love, rather it is about economics.
“If we want to maintain our various welfare systems as they look today, we need to reverse the downward population trend, since in the future fewer and fewer working people will be supporting more and more old people,” notes Anders Svensson the report's lead author. Svensson studied this issue in a bachelor’s thesis in economics at Lund University School of Economics and Management in Sweden and was prompted by a suggestion from the American think tank Rand to look at state-subsidized IVF treatment.
With low birthrates many European countries are finding themselves at below the replacement level - which in turn threatens nations' pension and health care plans. In Greece, Italy and Spain roughly 1.3 children are born per woman, while in Sweden that number is 1.88. Yet, according to the author in Sweden some 10–20 percent of all couples are unable to have children for various reasons, even though they wish to.
“Subsidized in vitro fertilization is not a total solution for aging populations, but it is part of a strategy. And it’s important to have plan to make Sweden and other countries better able to deal with the future,” argues Svensson.
Svensson uses a scenario where every test-tube baby is an average person in terms of longevity and income. The study is based on a net present value calculation, which factors in inflation and other parameters. If the state invests in a test-tube baby today, that investment today is worth SEK 254,000, calculated only on what the individual will pay in income tax and value-added tax – other taxes have not been counted, which means that the state’s profit per individual is likely underestimated. “The effect on the Swedish population curve is comparable to raising state child allowances by 25 percent, but at a lower cost,” Svensson claims.
According to Svensson, in other countries IVF children are probably even more profitable, since Sweden has a relatively costly welfare system.
In a similar calculation based on British conditions, two co-authors of the article in SJPH, Federico Callo, Rand, and Mark Connolly, Global Market Access Solutions, have found that every IVF child yields a profit of GBP 160,069.
“The difference can largely be explained by the fact that schooling, elderly care, and health care are relatively higher costs for the Swedish state than for the UK state. In other words, the Swedish welfare system is more expensive, which reduces the profits,” says Svensson.
In an article by Tim Drake for the National Catholic Register (1), Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, explained why IVF is immoral.
“It undermines the meaning of sex. It violates the exclusivity of the couple’s marriage covenant,” Father Pacholczyk said in the article. “It says that it is okay to manufacture life in a laboratory as if it were a commodity, when it should be the result of human love,” adding that “there’s also the ancillary evil of freezing embryonic humans that are later abandoned or poured down the sink if they are not useful.”
1) Tim Drake. "Couples Ask: What’s Wrong With In-vitro Fertilization?" National Catholic Register. (August 14, 2004).
As Europe's population grays, some advocates say instead of seeking traditional measures to foment marriage and offspring, governments instead should be increasing funding for in vitro fertilizations.
Europe's population is swiftly aging with projections forecasting one third of all inhabitants to be older than 65 years old in 2050, versus every sixth person today. An answer to propping Europe's beleaguered pension and health care plans could be found in increased funding for in vitro fertilizations, claims a recent report. Test-tube babies are an investment for the future, not an expense, claims an article published in the "Scandinavian Journal of Public Health."
The Catholic Church is opposed to in vitro fertilization. According to the No. 2377 in the Church's Catechism, such methods of reproduction “dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children. Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses’ union.”
But according to the report's authors the question isn't about love, rather it is about economics.
“If we want to maintain our various welfare systems as they look today, we need to reverse the downward population trend, since in the future fewer and fewer working people will be supporting more and more old people,” notes Anders Svensson the report's lead author. Svensson studied this issue in a bachelor’s thesis in economics at Lund University School of Economics and Management in Sweden and was prompted by a suggestion from the American think tank Rand to look at state-subsidized IVF treatment.
With low birthrates many European countries are finding themselves at below the replacement level - which in turn threatens nations' pension and health care plans. In Greece, Italy and Spain roughly 1.3 children are born per woman, while in Sweden that number is 1.88. Yet, according to the author in Sweden some 10–20 percent of all couples are unable to have children for various reasons, even though they wish to.
“Subsidized in vitro fertilization is not a total solution for aging populations, but it is part of a strategy. And it’s important to have plan to make Sweden and other countries better able to deal with the future,” argues Svensson.
Svensson uses a scenario where every test-tube baby is an average person in terms of longevity and income. The study is based on a net present value calculation, which factors in inflation and other parameters. If the state invests in a test-tube baby today, that investment today is worth SEK 254,000, calculated only on what the individual will pay in income tax and value-added tax – other taxes have not been counted, which means that the state’s profit per individual is likely underestimated. “The effect on the Swedish population curve is comparable to raising state child allowances by 25 percent, but at a lower cost,” Svensson claims.
According to Svensson, in other countries IVF children are probably even more profitable, since Sweden has a relatively costly welfare system.
In a similar calculation based on British conditions, two co-authors of the article in SJPH, Federico Callo, Rand, and Mark Connolly, Global Market Access Solutions, have found that every IVF child yields a profit of GBP 160,069.
“The difference can largely be explained by the fact that schooling, elderly care, and health care are relatively higher costs for the Swedish state than for the UK state. In other words, the Swedish welfare system is more expensive, which reduces the profits,” says Svensson.
In an article by Tim Drake for the National Catholic Register (1), Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, explained why IVF is immoral.
“It undermines the meaning of sex. It violates the exclusivity of the couple’s marriage covenant,” Father Pacholczyk said in the article. “It says that it is okay to manufacture life in a laboratory as if it were a commodity, when it should be the result of human love,” adding that “there’s also the ancillary evil of freezing embryonic humans that are later abandoned or poured down the sink if they are not useful.”
1) Tim Drake. "Couples Ask: What’s Wrong With In-vitro Fertilization?" National Catholic Register. (August 14, 2004).
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