Win a baby.

Date:
2012
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About this work

Description

In the UK today one in six couples suffer from infertility; cuts to the NHS budget and private treatment costs thousands of pounds and couples finding it difficult to conceive are left with few options. This documentary follows Camille Strachan, a business woman living in London, and her bid to launch Britain’s first IVF lottery. The aim of the project is to give those, who like herself have had a negative experience with IVF, and turn it into a positive one; Camille’s motives however are brought into question by the media; whether she is an innovator, offering people a chance of something that may otherwise have not been available to them or merely exploiting desperate couples, using their desire to have a child for personal gain. In July 2011 ‘To Hatch’, Camille’s charity, announced they were to run an IVF lottery whereby participants could purchase a raffle ticket for the price of £20 giving them the chance to win a ‘luxury’ IVF treatment worth £25,000. With one million tickets available however, the motives and monetary gain gained by ‘To Hatch’ as a non-profit charitable organisation are called into question by the Charity Commission; the organisation loses its charitable status and the company becomes a ‘Community Interest Company’. More than a year later, the lottery has still not been launched and Camille is finding it difficult to attain a gambling licence; the gambling committee believe her to be preying upon vulnerable, desperate couples hoping to win a child. Three couples are interviewed in the course of the program, all of which have problems with fertility. For Kimberly, who lives in an area where IVF is unavailable through the NHS and cannot afford the £3,500 it would cost her to get private treatment, the IVF lottery gives her an opportunity to have a child. Sat and Michelle, a couple who have already been through an unsuccessful course of IVF, believe the lottery offers couples like themselves another chance at having a family. Finally, Candida and Damien, who have already been through two courses of IVF and made the decision to stop trying, feel the whole experience of IVF to be a lottery anyway, whether it is the postcode lottery or the success rate of the treatment itself. For them the ‘To Hatch Lottery’ is merely following the trend. The overall opinion of the couples interviewed, contrary to the attitude of the media, is in favour of Camille’s IVF lottery, believing it to offer hope, however small, to those couples with almost no other option. Due to the delayed launch of the lottery however, the couples end up finding other routes in pursuit of conception.

Publication/Creation

UK : More 4, 2012.

Physical description

1 DVD (24 min.) : sound, color, PAL

Copyright note

More 4

Notes

Broadcast on 8th October, 2012

Creator/production credits

Producer; Danielle Clark, directed and filmed by Joseph Martin.

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores
    5150D

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