Dr Andrew Pesce: Transcript of interview on access to fertility services

Partial transcript of interview: Dr Andrew Pesce with Sky News Australia
Sunday 2 August 2009. E&OE 

SUBJECT: Access to fertility treatment

Leigh HATCHER (PRESENTER):        
It's been reported today that the head of the Australian Medical Association says gay couples should not have access to IVF.

CELINA EDMONDS (PRESENTER):                         
Doctor Andrew Pesce said IVF was not a lifestyle choice and using it to give a baby to gay couples went against the natural order. Now joining us on the line is Dr Pesce. Dr Pesce, thanks very much for your time. Now, do you stand by these comments this morning?

DR PESCE:       
Good morning. Now, look, sorry, the comments have been misreported. I was being interviewed at length about the increasing tendency for women to elect to store their eggs for later on in life and use IVF to help them achieve having a baby later on in life and unfortunately it's been extrapolated out to making me appear to support a position which I don't. The AMA has a very clear policy on non-discrimination in the provision of medical services to all Australians. And so that would cover this and that is my personal position as well.

LEIGH HATCHER:   
So your personal ... just to clarify, your personal position is what in relation to the provision of IVF to gay couples.

DR PESCE:    
There should be no discrimination in the provision of IVF services consistent with the general policy of no discrimination provision of any medical services. I myself have delivered babies of lesbian couples and I have referred lesbians to fertility centres for treatment so I think that sort of reinforces that that is my personal position.

CELINA EDMONDS:       
You must have been horrified then to hear this being reported this way this morning?

DR PESCE:   
Well, look, I guess, it shows that you can say one thing and it’s sometimes be taken to mean another. I was horrified. I did find out about it through a phone call from Kerryn Phelps who's a personal friend of mine and who would have understood that that wasn't my position. When I found out that was the take on the story that was going to be published I rang the reporter, I explained that that wasn't my position and this was a mistake so I've done what I can to try and correct the record and I hope this interview sets it on the way to that.

LEIGH HATCHER:   
You're quoted as saying that the provision of IVF goes against the natural order, they are the words used.     How is it that something so, kind of, stark could be so confused do you think?

DR PESCE:
Well, I was talking about the assumption that one could delay having children until later in life and that IVF would automatically be there to provide you with a baby. The statistics are quite clear that as women get older, success of IVF does decrease. At the ideal age of you know, in the ... early to mid thirties, success rates of IVF are very good and at about 30 per cent. Once you get to the age of 40, it's about 15 per cent and if you get to sort of the mid '40s, it's less than two per cent. So that was the natural order that I was referring to: that, you know, with maternal age, that fertility - even with IVF - is going down.

ENDS  

2 August 2009


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