Same-sex couples, single women and low-income families would have cheaper access to fertility treatment under a new 10-year plan to address declining birth rates and regulate Australia’s booming IVF industry.
In a sweeping review of Australia’s national fertility policy, unveiled on Sunday, former health minister Greg Hunt and embryologist Dr Rachel Swift found the fragmented IVF system was not equipped to keep up with rising demand fuelled by older parents and more non-traditional families.
Another recommendation was to fund public patient IVF targeted at low and limited-income families, noting a single IVF cycle could cost upwards of $10,000.
Former health minister Greg Hunt, now a professor at the University of Melbourne, has co-authored a review into the country’s booming IVF sector. Credit: Eddie Jim
The review will increase pressure on Hunt’s successor as federal health minister, Mark Butler, to update the Commonwealth’s definition of infertility after the authors found there was “near universal” community support for giving same-sex couples and single women equal access to Medicare-subsidised IVF.
The Commonwealth’s current definition of infertility restricts Medicare benefits to people unable to conceive after one year of regular, unprotected intercourse.
The Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand, the peak body commissioning the review as part of its 10-year strategy, has described that definition as outdated and discriminatory, and last month joined other peak fertility organisations in updating their own definitions of infertility to better represent same-sex and solo parents.
“Those that are in same-sex relationships or single mothers by choice will require ... the [IVF] sector to be able to create their family, so reducing barriers and limiting the discrimination against them is really important,” said Dr Petra Wale, the society’s president.
The sector’s regulator, the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC), is currently funded wholly by the Fertility Society. The review recommended the government chip in funding to address a perceived lack of independence and concerns about its “capacity to handle the anticipated growth in IVF services”.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said the government would carefully consider the report “once it is finalised and published”.
The review’s key recommendation was to collapse more than 40 state and territory IVF-related laws into one uniform national law, guaranteeing equal reproductive rights nationwide and reducing red tape across borders.
This would enable governments to set up a single national health standard for egg and sperm donation, similar to that for organ and blood donation, which Hunt and Swift said would address a reported national shortage of donated eggs and sperm.
A national register and genetic bank was also recommended, to guarantee the rights of donor-conceived children to seek information about their genetic parentage and create uniform laws protecting the rights of donors.
Hunt and Swift said IVF played an increasing role in helping parents conceive without passing hereditary conditions on to their children, recommending the government expand its national carrier screening program to screen for more genetic conditions than the three currently included.
Rachael Casella, who campaigned for the existing $20 million pilot screening program after her daughter Mackenzie died from the severe degenerative disorder spinal muscular atrophy (SMA1), said expanded carrier screening would help parents make more informed decisions about how to start a family.
“As someone whose life has been heavily impacted by genetics and who also experienced nine rounds of IVF to get our family, I am so excited and heartened to know that this report by Greg Hunt has been provided to the government,” she said. “I desperately hope they listen.”
Australia now has more than 300,000 children born through IVF, with 20,000 new IVF babies added each year.
That amounts to around 6 per cent of Australian children born through IVF, a number that Hunt and Swift said would “grow significantly over the coming decade”.
Australia’s birthrate has halved in 60 years, from 3.5 births per woman in 1960 to 1.63 in 2022. At the same time, the median age of mothers at birth has jumped from 25.4 years in 1971 to 31.9 in 2022.
Statistics from the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit at the University of NSW show that, as the average age of birth rises, IVF becomes a more common route to conception.
Unit director Professor Georgina Chambers said a national approach to fertility was crucial as societal changes meant many people started families later.
“We can’t rely on IVF solely to reverse declining fertility, but it is meaningful because it helps those older age groups,” she said.
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