The Last Word

This topic has become tiresome--especially because in their third attempt to get it right, Resolve (and Joe Isaacs in particular) has once again missed the mark.

Here is the text of Isaacs' letter of clarification to Newsweek:

Raising the issue that infertility among younger women is on the rise and highlighting the lifestyle and environmental factors that may be contributing to this troubling trend are important services to your readers ("Ask the Pro/Infertility," TIP SHEET, March 13). If young women better understand these risk factors to their fertility, they can then take action to—it's hoped—reduce threats to their childbearing ability. However, in focusing on the impact of such things as age, weight, exposure to contaminants and smoking, your article excludes mention of the medical causes of the disease of infertility in women, including ovarian dysfunction, endometriosis, blocked tubes and other structural malformations and hormonal disorders. For many women, infertility is caused by underlying clinical problems which often can be successfully addressed with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery.

This letter confirmed for me that his earlier remarks were not taken out of context: he is, quite simply, a terrible advocate for infertile people.

Here are my quibbles:

1.  "If young women better understand these risk factors to their fertility, they can then take action to--it's hoped--reduce threats to their childbearing ability."

What are you saying here, Joe?  I can read it at least two ways.  Are you saying that it’s hoped that young women will amend their slutty, boozy, druggy, fatty ways, and in so doing, automatically reduce threats to their childbearing ability (in which case, those of us who are infertile should simply be blamed for not having done so sooner)?  Or is the hope you mention here one that your theory is correct and that amending our slutty, boozy, druggy, fatty ways does in fact reduce threats to childbearing ability after all? Because it would really suck to piss off all these infertiles over something that was just a theory.  You know?

2.  "For many women, infertility is caused by underlying clinical problems which often can be successfully addressed with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery."

Well that sounds awfully easy.  Much easier than it is.  Something you might know if you had any personal experience with drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery and the emotional and financial consequences thereof.  And, of course, sometimes that drug therapy, medical procedures and/or surgery don't work.  But don't sweat the details. 

Whatever.  It's disappointing that Resolve squandered this opportunity first, to explain infertility to the general public, and second to apologize for such a poor explanation.  Is this really the best the infertile community can do?

Comments

[Lisa T.]

I think he sucks.
Every failed IUI and IVF cycle my husband and I say to each other that if we could actually do anything to make this happen we've done it, because
if smoking, drinking, slutting, and fat have that big of a freaking impact then why are there so many babies born addicted to drugs, or with fetal alcohol syndrome ? I've concluded, in a not so expert opinion kind of way, that it is either going to be easy or not easy for an individual to become pregnant, there are things a person can do if it isn't so easy to make it easier...
So, pass the crack pipe... I think it is the one thing I haven't tried.