Win a Baby
Tacky or an opportunity to have the child you always wanted? What say you?
'Win a baby!' Canadian radio station is criticised for its 'tacky' fertility treatment competition
A radio station in Canada has been criticised by fertility groups after launching a competition for listeners to 'win a baby'.
Hot 89.9, a music station based in Ottawa, is offering £21,000 worth of fertility treatment to the most 'deserving' contestant struggling to conceive.
Yellow posters advertising the competition feature a baby holding a sign reading 'Win me!' and another reads 'Are you my Mommy?'
Four hundred people, including same sex couples, single women and cancer patients, entered the competition and they have now been whittled down to five finalists.
Each couple must now convince listeners and judges, who include fertility experts, why they should win.
The winner will be announced on the station's breakfast show next week.
Fertility experts have branded the contest 'tacky' however the radio station has defended it, saying it is 'trying to do a good thing for a family which can't conceive.'
Applicants also supported the competition with one describing it as an 'excellent idea'.
Beverly Hanck, executive director of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada, said the competition was 'tacky and distasteful', the Guardian said.
She said: 'The station is clearly capitalising on vulnerable patients who are desperate to have a family. Has anyone stopped to think how the hundreds of patients who do not win are going to feel?'
Toronto fertility counsellor Jan Silverman said she objected to 'commodification of babies, turning babies into products'.
However, she conceded the competition did raise awareness about the high cost of treatment in the city.
Fertility treatment is not publicly funded in Ontario where the station is based.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046773/Win-baby-Canadian-radio-...
Canada is an equal opportunity country Brit. We believe that same sex couples and singles have the same rights as married couples, including the right to have a baby. If the radio station had denied same sex couples or singles the right to apply then they would have found themselves at the very least boycotted and brought up on hate charges at the worse taken off the air.DK, the adoption waiting list in Canada is 7 years long, even for older children and children with special needs, and adopting from foreign countries is just as expensive as fertility treatments.
I have always advocated to couples who cannot conceive a child, to contemplate adopting an under previlaged baby from an orphanage than spending a huge amount on ones treatment..
btw, the contest 'win a baby' doesn't appeal to me at all.
I can undestand fertility treatment for couples who are having problems concieving but same sex and singles ???
I can kind of see both sides of it. While it's great for the couple that wins, it is kind of tacky....at the same time, what do you expect from a morning radio show?
MM had to be the OP..ha ha!Anyways as for the competition then I say its propably an awesome idea cos I know how many people must want such treatments but can't afford it. However I find the methods used for advertising may not be in everyone's taste.They should be more sensitive.
I wish there was a similar contest for Bald people so Rizks could have a free Hair Transplant..!
Well UkEng, it doesn't specifiy what type of fertility treatment the station is paying for. I'm sure as long as it comes in the $50,000 price range, they will pay for it. Be it donor egg or sperm or IVF treatments.
Miss Mimi, imagine if a same sex couple wins the price, then they will need either a donor egg or donor sperm. I hope that will be included in the prize and price.
good news to couple who can not make a baby..consider it as adoption.
Well PS good news for one couple that can't have a baby. That's if they are lucky enough to get pregnant after one round of treatments, which is all $50,000 will buy.
Good news to couples who cant have a baby..:)
Well at least in the UK its funded by the National Health Service (NHS).The only good thing is the awareness and of course the winner who will receive the treatment for free I guess.
:)