Every year, hundreds of people in Europe have access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These are used to treat infertility problems in heterosexual couples or to enable same-sex couples or single women to have children. There are countries in Europe where babies born with these techniques are between 5 and 8 percent of the total.

Each European country has its own rules to regulate access to those treatments, involving age limits and the number of attempts covered by the public healthcare system. In some cases, the rules in place lead to discrimination that hits mainly LGBT couples and single women. All this often forces people to travel abroad to avoid such limitations.

EDJNet engaged in an investigation, led by Civio, which tackles one of the key aspects of the problem: access to treatments. The investigation looked into the legislation of 43 European countries, resulting in a comprehensive database and in a number of different stories that go beyond the data to hear the personal experiences of people.

We talk about the investigation with Ángela Bernardo and Maria Álvarez del Vayo from Civio (Spain) and Adrian Burtin from Voxeurop (France).