Swiss are open to assisted reproduction

72% of respondents considered artificial insemination, and 60% considered in vitro fertilisation to be morally acceptable or very acceptable. © KEYSTONE / GAETAN BALLY

The Swiss are open to assisted reproduction when it comes to having children. This is the result of an initial analysis of a representative survey published by the University of Zurich on Monday.

As part of the “Swiss Assisted Reproduction Longitudinal Study” (Charls), researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) led by Jörg Rössel asked 5,283 Swiss citizens about their experiences and attitudes towards various infertility treatments. According to UZH, this is the first representative survey on the topic.

+ Read about Switzerland’s IVF baby boom

On Monday, the university published an initial analysis of this survey by PhD student Maila Mertens.

According to the new data, the most common treatment for infertility in Switzerland is hormone therapy. Some 9% of those surveyed have undergone such treatment.

Artificial insemination was the second most frequently used method by respondents, which had been used by 5% of respondents, followed by In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) at 4%. In contrast to artificial insemination, in which sperm is injected into the cervix or directly into the uterus shortly before ovulation, with IVF eggs are retrieved and fertilised with sperm in the laboratory.

In addition, 17% of all women could imagine having their own eggs frozen. While 22% were undecided.

Almost three out of four respondents (72%) stated that they considered artificial insemination to be morally acceptable or very acceptable. IVF was rated as good or very justifiable by 60% of respondents. Egg freezing was similarly well received in the survey, but at 57%, respondents rated this as at least morally acceptable.

Respondents were also open to egg donation, which is prohibited in Switzerland. Some 73% said that they would agree to legalisation of the practice.

In contrast, only around half of the study participants considered the freezing of embryos to be morally justifiable. Only surrogacy and embryo donation received even less support, with less than a third of respondents considering each to be morally justifiable.

Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/mga

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].