In the 1960s the birthrate in Greenland was one of the highest in the world. Then it plunged. Decades later, women have finally begun speaking out about what happened Bula Larson was 14 when one day she and her friends were told to go to the hospital. Bula lived in Greenland and was Inuit like most of the population of the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark. At the hospital she and her friends lined up, and one-by-one were told to enter a room. Bula recalls how she was asked to sit on a bed with ‘cold metal stirrups’ where, to her shock, she was fitted with an IUD, a contracep ..read more

Alexandra Eccles and Lyndal Bubke were conceived from ‘Donor 59’. But the information available to them is scant – and they want that to change Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Every six months or so, Alexandra Eccles discovers a new half-sibling. The Ancestry.com family tree icon pings as another person is drawn into the knowledge that half of their life is a lie. After more than two decades, Eccles has confirmed she has 32 siblings. Some are as old as 32, others are in their teens. Her best gues ..read more

Free pets? Baby bonuses? Surely the solution to falling birthrates is clarity on immigration Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh For the past 75 years in global public health, one of the major priorities has been exponential population growth and Malthusian concerns that the supply of food on the planet won’t be able to keep up. In 1951, the world’s population was 2.5 billion, which increased to 4 billion by 1975, 6.1 billion by 2000, and 8 billion by 2023. Governments in the two most populous countries, India and China, even implemented, respectively ..read more

Exclusive: Territory’s government calls for visit to listen to those thought to be living with consequences of forced fitting of IUDs ‘I was only a child’: women tell of trauma of forced contraception The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said. In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedu ..read more

We all deserve better from healthcare providers who sell false promise to some, while shutting down options for others You can’t have missed the conversations about the rise of freezing eggs for non-medical or “social” reasons in recent years, which forms part of an explosion in the use of fertility treatments, all with the promise of giving more options to prospective parents. The starting point is often the question of whether someone, almost always a wealthy, straight, white woman, should freeze her eggs as insurance against her “biological clock”, career development and/or the risk of not ..read more

When couples fail to conceive, it’s too often regarded as the woman’s problem. But that is far from being the case Women are rarely given the chance to forget about our biological clocks: their starting, slowing, stopping. I remember talking about whether I’d want children with my mum when I was six or seven years old. Now that I’m 32, my friends are having children, debating having them, or dating in the hopes of having the option. My female friends, that is. My impression of the men in my life is that they are not really thinking about children at all, instead assuming that they will happen ..read more

Investigation begins into Homerton Fertility Centre after errors discovered in freezing processes A fertility clinic in London has had its licence to operate suspended because of “significant concerns” about the unit, the regulator has said. The Homerton Fertility Centre has been ordered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to halt any new procedures while investigations continue ..read more

Procedure could overcome common forms of infertility and help people have children who share their DNA Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago. The work raises the prospect of older women being able to have children who share their DNA, and to overcome common forms of infertility caused by a woman’s eggs becoming damaged by disease or cancer treatment ..read more

Republicans proposed bill so providers could resume services, but doctors and advocates say it reinforces ruling recognizing embryos as children Alabama’s swift passage of a law on Wednesday night that protects in vitro fertilization providers from liability was greeted by relief – and some concern – as treatments were expected to resume on Thursday following the state supreme court’s shock decision last month that equated frozen embryos to children, halting many IVF services. After the new law was passed reproductive rights advocates called for more to be done to protect reproductive health ..read more

Xavier Becerra says US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if it hopes to avoid further restrictions The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services f ..read more