SAN DIEGO – October 21, 2011 – Five couples in Canada are elated after winning in vitro fertility treatments in a "Win A Baby" contest staged by Ottawa radio station Hot 89.9 (CIHT-FM). The station is also elated by all the attention both positive and negative the contest has drawn across Canada and the United States.
The contest drew hundreds of entrants hoping for the chance to win up to three fertility treatments. Couples wrote essays making the best case for being chosen and campaigns until the five finalists were selected, believing just one winner would be chosen. Instead, radio hosts announced that all five couples were winners.
In the province of Ontario, IVF treatments are not covered by government-funded insurance coverage. The cost for three treatments is approximately $35,000, pricing many couples out of this option.
Four hundred couples entered to win fertility treatments from Canadian radio station Hot 89.9.
Bright yellow posters of a cute baby with the blaring caption "Win A Baby" splashed across the station’s website and Facebook page irritated a lot of people who thought the contest crossed the line, exploiting couples who want to have children and turning babies into products.
But the contest had strong support from a majority of Canadians, many of whom had experienced infertility or were "test-tube" babies themselves. Stacey Lawrence of Ottawa wrote, "Being a test tube baby myself, my parents had such a hard time conceiving and with this procedure being new and being so expensive back then, my parents community chipped in and helped them… if it wasn’t for the community, I don’t think I would be here." This is a compelling statement.
Representatives of infertility awareness groups were equally divided as to whether the contest was a valuable way to raise awareness of infertility issues, or exploited vulnerable patients desperate enough to have a family to put themselves in the public eye for a chance at treatment.
Naturally the radio station defended the contest as a way to help people who desperately want to have a family. The winners were elated, as you see in a video posted to the station’s website.
Count me as a supporter of this contest. This is entrepreneurship at its best. What a way to make international headlines! The amount of media coverage Hot 89.9 received can’t even begin to be measured, including this column.
My only concern is that any person who could give a child a good home should have been allowed to "apply" for the job of being a parent. I was very glad to see that same-sex couples, single people, and even cancer patients were allowed to participate, although all five winners selected were straight, married couples.
The number of people out there who want children and cannot afford fertility treatments is enormous. Adoption is often suggested as an alternative, but adoption is also extremely expensive, and it is a lengthy, difficult legal process full of just as many highs and lows as being treated for infertility (though without the hormones and shots).
A smart radio station in the United States in one of the 37 states where insurers do not offer coverage for IVF treatments needs to clone this idea. Thirteen states have laws that require insurance companies to cover infertility treatment; however, California, Louisiana and New York have laws that specifically exclude coverage for IVF procedures, covering only less complex treatments such as assisted insemination and hormone therapy.
Myra Chack Fleischer founded Fleischer & Associates in 2001 and serves as Lead Counsel with a focus on divorce, property, custody and support, settlement agreements, mediation, asset division and family law appeals. Read more Legally Speaking in the Communities at The Washington Times. Follow Fleischer & Associates on Facebook and on Twitter @LawyerMyra
Copyright © 2011 by Fleischer & Associates, Attorneys at Law
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