'Maybe Baby? The global lottery for fertility treatment' was the latest PET public engagement exercise at Science Museum Late. This Science Late was supported by the Gates Foundation and took place on Wednesday 11 September.
The PET team and our amazing volunteers spent the evening talking to some of the 2000 visitors about fertility treatments and the different levels of access to them in different countries. The title 'Maybe Baby? The global lottery for fertility treatment' reflected how government policies can impact on people's reproductive choices.
We used the fact we were located in the museum's Flight Gallery to full advantage. We pinned up a map of the world and had flight paths leading to posters explaining how different countries have different policies. The posters used QR codes so that people could read BioNews articles for further information. In each destination visitors were asked to give their opinion on a particular fertility treatment or policy related issue.
For example, in the USA sex selection is permitted as part of fertility treatment. We asked the public whether they thought sex selection should be permitted in the UK. Currently, it is only permitted to prevent the transmission of a sex-linked condition. Most people thought that it should not.
As part of Maybe Baby, PET also asked people for their views on surrogacy, funding of fertility treatment on the NHS and whether they would donate their own gametes.
Of course, we couldn't resist asking what people thought about the use of in vitro derived gametes (IVGs). Although there is a long way to go before IVGs can be used for human reproduction we thought it would be interesting to learn what the public thought.
It was a fantastic evening, with lots of really interesting and sometimes surprising discussions and we look forward to taking part in another Science late soon.