A Moral Maze ....... should prisoners have access to IVF?

Ana I think you'll find that the cat was evidence of the relationship with his girlfriend and not the reason for his being allowed to stay - on fact the Home Office had ignored its own guidelines in initially refusing him
leave to stay

Oh My God NO!!! hello!! they are Murderer's--what kind of a life would that be for a child to have a Murder for a Father, I know that diplomacy should be the key when posting but will break that rule just this once...IVF indeed goes off in complete disgust!!

Definitely not!

mishap Can I also join your "aging fascist" group on this one? (I do mean the "aging fascist bit" as a joke. Right?

I am with everyone on this.

Why should they be entitled to any treatment such as I.V.F. Who pays for the cost of bringing up the child? Decent hard working people have to save hard to afford it. It is not a human right to have a child.

Worst of all, what about the 'human rights' of the unborn child? Who has the right to say he/she must be born to satisfy inept parents who have committed a crime.

For goodness sake, liberal thinking at it's worst.

One word answer, NO

Human rights, piffle, we are a pathetic country allowing too many "rights" for the wrong people. It never seems to be people like us who have rights, but the wrong doers. Please don't get me started...

I think the Darwin Awards principle should apply to prisoners. They qualify because the have rendered themselves officially sterile by being put away. This is the wiki definition of Darwin Awards:

^The Darwin Awards are a tongue-in-cheek honor, originating in Usenet newsgroup discussions circa 1985. They recognize individuals who have contributed to human evolution by self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or sterilization due to their own (unnecessarily foolish) actions. The project became more formalized with the creation of a website in 1993, and followed up by a series of books starting in 2000, authored by Wendy Northcutt. The criterion for the awards states, "In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival."[2]

Accidental self-sterilization also qualifies. ^

Hence they should NOT be encouraged to reproduce.

I'm sorry to sound like an old fart but aren't people in prision for a crime - sometimes murder? To me that means you have been removed from society for a time for punishment depending on that crime, and you have been removed for the safety of other people.
You should be entitled to: food, shelter, medical care, access to education to improve your mind, books for the same reason, work to enable you to buy a few treats, though some of your pay should go to your victims, visits by your friends and/or family.
You are not entitled to the comforts the rest of us aspire to, that includes Sky TV, marital rights and IVF.I'm sorry if the last two affect your family but you did something wrong. Many people have to pay for IVF treatment but one would assume that yours would be free. To some it would appear to have free IVF you have to commit a crime. Who is going to pay for all this? Two guesses.
I firmly believe that you can judge the civilised side of a country by how they treat their prisoners, IVF is not included in that.

Great post dorset. Refusing IVF for prisoners isn't about having no compassion for them or their families, nor about inflicting revenge on them. The prisoners serving shorter and medium term sentences can wait until they are released to procreate, and when they are in Cat D open prisons, or become eligible for release on temporary licence for a few days, they get to spend time with their partners. Those serving long and life sentences have to face the fact that this is one of the consequences of their conviction and sentence.

Sadly, with the current state of the NHS, access to IVF treatment is a luxury even for people who have not forfeited their rights to luxuries by spoiling things in some way for the rest of society. If anyone is really asking for IVF treatment in prison, I can only think they have a bloody cheek.

If the government feels that there is money available for this (and, presumably, for supporting the spouse while she brings up the child on her own) I would much prefer to see it being used to help some of the women prisoners, many of whom shouldn't be in prison at all, and their children who face being separated from their mothers, perhaps for years. Support and education for these women and their children could help to reduce crime - handing out IVF will just produce more people expecting to have everything given to them.

No. No discussion (I do not mean this thread). No justification or special pleading, just 'No'