Megan and Whitney Bacon-Evans want changes to fertility treatment requirements (Picture: Instagram/@whatwegandidnext)
A lesbian couple has dropped their legal case against an NHS fertility clinic for discriminating against LGBTQI+ families.
Megan and Whitney Bacon-Evans, both in their 30s, launched a judicial review against Frimley CCG in 2021, calling for changes to the requirements same-sex couples have to meet to receive fertility treatment.
The couple from Windsor, who go by ‘Wegan’ online, have previously said they have had to pay tens of thousands of pounds to become eligible for NHS-funded IVF.
Frimley CCG, which denies discrimination, said same-sex couples and single women must pay for 12 intrauterine insemination (IUI) or IVF treatments to ‘prove’ medical infertility before they are eligible for NHS treatment.
Conversely, heterosexual couples have to try to conceive naturally for two years to qualify.
But the couple posted on Saturday: ‘Two-and-a-half years after launching legal action, we are pleased to announce that our case has come to an end with a victory.
‘We launched a landmark legal case in 2021 against our local ICB (Integrated Care Board) to tackle the discrimination that same-sex female couples face when it comes to receiving fertility treatments on the NHS in England.
The couple say they have had to pay tens of thousands of pounds to get IVF (Picture: Instagram/@whatwegandidnext)
‘We are withdrawing our legal action as Frimley ICB recognises the need to update their policy to remove the inequality between same-sex female couples and cis heterosexual couples.
‘This combined with the Government’s commitment to removing the barriers to accessing IVF for same-sex female couples in 2023 leaves us feeling very hopeful for the future of LGBTQ+ families.’
In May, the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Women’s Health Strategy Maria Caulfield said: ‘We expect the removal of the additional financial burden faced by female same-sex couples when accessing IVF treatment to take effect during 2023.’
Megan and Whitney went on: ‘We really hope that going forward other couples won’t have to go through discrimination and can have the families they deserve.
They said this is ‘simply the next chapter’ of their fertility equality journey (Picture: Instagram/@whatwegandidnext)
‘This is not the end of our campaigning, simply the next chapter. We will continue to ensure that Fertility Equality is achieved and we hope to have a baby Wegan by our side while still fighting the good fight.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Frimley CCG for comment. It previously said its fertility services are ‘based on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines’.
These currently state that women under the age of 40 can be offered three cycles of IVF on the NHS if they have been trying to get pregnant through regular unprotected sex for two years or they have not got pregnant after 12 cycles of artificial insemination.
Individual ICBs also have the power to determine the policy for their areas.
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The pair had accused the clinic of ‘discriminating against same-sex couples’.
