Turkish women’s torment as IVF clinic shuts amid unrest

DOZENS of women fear they may have lost their chance to have children after an Istanbul fertility clinic was closed down during Turkey’s post-coup purge.

Zeynep Ustahüseyin was preparing for pregnancy when a group of rogue officers moved to overthrow the government last month. She was due to begin the last phase of in-vitro fertilisation.

Yet two weeks later, the authorities closed the hospital where she was due to have the procedure and seized everything in it – including the embryo Zeynep already thought of as her second child.

The Ustahüseyins are not alone. On Turkish message boards, dozens of distraught women who say they had frozen eggs or embryos at the closed IVF clinic tell similar stories.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “cleansing” campaign targeting supposed supporters of the coup continues relentlessly. No day passes without reports of arrests. Hundreds of newspapers, schools, universities and hospitals linked to Fethullah Gülen, the USbased cleric accused of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt, have been closed down by decree.

The Istanbul Women’s Health and IVF Centre was a small private clinic with some 80 employees. The Ustahüseyins fear that the centre’s closure may cost them their dream of a child. Zeynep, who already has a child from her first marriage, lost two of her three IVF-generated embryos in an early miscarriage.

At the age of 43, she knew hers was a high-risk case. The second transfer, scheduled for late July, was to be their last chance.

“Twelve days before the hospital was closed, I went for my last check-up and the doctor said everything was fine. He told me we could do the transfer after my next period,” said Mrs Ustahüseyin.

On July 24, the government issued an emergency decree closing down 35 health institutions — including the IVF centre — but Mrs Ustahüseyin did not find out until a week later.

After two days, she was told that her embryo had been taken to Koc University in northern Istanbul. The Ustahüseyins were told that they could continue the procedure there, but Zeynep was distressed at the thought of being treated by a doctor she had never met.

“I began having nightmares of being dragged out of the hospital by police,” she said, bursting into tears. “Who’s going to take responsibility for this? I want answers. Why was I not informed?”