Hungary Says It Will Offer Free Fertility Treatments To Counter Population Deficits
Source: NPR
Hungary has announced that it will offer free in-vitro fertilization treatments, the latest major initiative to try to boost the country's population numbers, which have been declining for decades.
Hungary's nationalist right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said during an international news conference Thursday that IVF treatments would be provided for free starting Feb. 1. The government recently purchased six private fertility clinics, and Orbán said the fertility sector is "of national strategic importance," as the Financial Times reported.
Orbán is fiercely opposed to immigration and has said that increasing national fertility rates is his preferred way to counter the population downturn and risk of labor shortages. Fewer than 10 million people live in Hungary. "If we want Hungarian children instead of immigrants and if the Hungarian economy can generate the necessary funding, then the only solution is to spend as much of the funds as possible on supporting families and raising children," the prime minister was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Orbán has also introduced other dramatic measures to encourage Hungarians to procreate. Last year, he said women who have four or more children will enjoy an income tax waiver for life, and that couples with three or more children are eligible to have certain loans forgiven.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/10/795211211/hungary-says-it-will-offer-free-fertility-treatments-to-counter-population-decli
Orban also said that bringing fertility clinics under state control would "make what happens to the fertilized eggs fully transparent during the entire process," and fertility treatment in Hungary won't be run on a "market basis" anymore.
The PM did not appear to offer any specific restrictions about who is eligible to receive free treatments. In the U.S. the average IVF treatment can cost a total of $40,000-$60,000, costs in other countries are lower.
By 2080, the population in Hungary is likely to decline by about 11%. The average annual number of births in Hungary is now less than half of what it was in 1950. Other European countries such as Greece and Italy, have even lower birth rates.
Last September, Hungary's speaker of parliament, László Kövér, stressed that "having children is a public matter, not a private one." He added that people who don't have kids are "not normal" and "stand on the side of death."
- How Democracy Died in Hungary, Vox, 2018,
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/13/17823488/hungary-democracy-authoritarianism-trump
- Lebensborn, The Nazi Breeding and Infanticide Program
https://timeline.com/the-nazi-breeding-and-infanticide-program-you-probably-never-knew-about-cc5cc7b82fdc
Between 1935 and 1945, the secret program encouraged racially “fit” women to bear children for the Reich and protected babies thought to exemplify Nazi Germany’s Aryan ideals. Translated as “fount of life,” the Lebensborn program involved secret birthing facilities, hidden identities, and the theft of hundreds of thousands of children.
The program has its roots in World War I, which decimated Germany’s male population and contributed to a sharp decline in the country’s birth rates, which fell 43 percent between 1920 and 1932..
- Viktor Orban, far-right Prime Minister of Hungary addresses the international media at a press conference on Thursday.
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