Is Infertility a Disease or a "Lifestyle Choice"?

Sometime this month, Quebec will begin funding fertility treatments for those experiencing infertility. The government will also provide free sperm donations to single women and gay couples. According to an editorial in The Globe and Mail, the fertility treatment program will be the most generous program in the world.

I think it's great that Quebec will be recognizing that infertility is a disease worthy of medical treatment. I'm not going to talk or debate about what services should or should not be provided by the government, nor discuss whether all the details of Quebec's program are good for fertility patients or the public in general. I don't even know enough about the program to really talk about it.
What I do want to talk about is Margaret Wente's editorial point, where she implies infertility is a lifestyle choice (and therefore is not a disease). Her argument? Since there are couples who choose not to have children, not having the ability to have children makes infertility a lifestyle.
Really? Seriously?
Ridiculous.
There are people who choose to never have sex, priests for example. Therefore, is impotence a lifestyle choice?
There are also some monks who take a vow of silence. I guess those who are deaf and are unable to vocalize are making a lifestyle choice.
While some people choose not to use the part of their brain that generates the feeling of empathy, I don't think anyone would consider that the same as someone who cannot experience empathy due to a brain injury or neurological disorder.
Infertility is not in any way a lifestyle choice. In fact, by definition, it can't be. Because those who are living with infertility do not have a choice to make. They want children and cannot have them. The choice has been made for them.
Plus, with the exception of age related infertility, when a couple cannot get pregnant, it's linked to something going wrong with the body. Sometimes it's ovulation that has gone wrong, other times it's blocked fallopian tubes or endometriosis. About half the time it's low or no sperm production.
In other words, the reproductive system is not healthy. There is disease. It's not normal.
And even with age related infertility, since when do we sit back and just let nature take its course when we have the ability to do something? I don't hear many 50 year olds refusing basic medical treatment, since once-upon-a-time, that was life expectancy. "Oh, it's just the natural aging process. Don't treat me. Time to die."
Of course, it doesn't help in great Infertility Disease Debate when someone from the "inside" says something stupid.
I'm referring to Dr. Sherman Silber's comment in a Newsweek article on the cost of IVF. He is quoted as saying, "It's hard to call infertility a disease. It's normal aging."
The article then goes on to state, "A complicating factor, according to St. Luke's Silber, is that up to 80 percent of infertility cases are caused simply by increasing maternal age."
I'd love to see where that statistics came from. How can 80% of infertility cases be linked to aging when almost 50% are related to male infertility? While men do experience some fertility decline with age, it's not as drastic as with women.
Plus, according to a fact sheet provided by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, 25% of infertility cases are linked to ovulation problems, while 35% of infertility are connected to blocked tubes or other structural problems. (Psst... age related infertility is mainly an ovulation problem. I think the American Society of Reproductive Medicine would disagree with Dr. Silber's statistic.)
But, on the other hand, what else can we expect from a doctor who's made his name known by pushing egg and ovarian tissue freezing as a method of extending fertility for women. The more people who think age is the key factor to infertility, the better for his business.
One last thought.
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines disease as "a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms."
Infertility is abnormal functioning of the reproductive system. Infertility has signs and symptoms.
Not referring to infertility as a disease has nothing to do with medicine. It's pure politics.
What are your thoughts? Do you think infertility is a disease? Or a lifestyle choice? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you!
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