Should women over 50 have NHS funded fertility treatment?

It was reported in the Daily Mail this week, that women in their 50s are having fertility treatment paid for by the NHS.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said up to 12 such women were granted IVF funding over a three-year period.

Campaigners said that public money should instead go on telling women how hard it was to get pregnant in their 50s.

This comes in the same week when we are being told that the government will stop funding 25 cancer treatments as part of its efforts to stem the soaring costs.

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: ‘We’d be better spending money educating women about the reality of reproduction. Fertility starts to dip mid-thirties and by 50 it’s at the menopausal stage.’

What are your views … are women today not aware of their own biological time clock? Due to the pressures of work and equal opportunities are women leaving it too late to start a family? Is the age of 50 too old to be starting a family?