Profiting from People’s Pain: Why Nigeria Must Confront the Heartlessness in Fertility Practice

It is a matter of deep anguish to write this. Yet silence, in the face of widespread cruelty, is complicity.

This piece is precipitated by a brief I received yesterday from a client about the utter mishandling of her fertility treatment at yet another so-called fertility clinic. Since then, I have been livid with indignation, battling a headache, and taking it very personally. This clinic must be held accountable, and dearly so. It is too much. One case too many.

For nearly three decades, I have worked at the intersection of family law, family strengthening and child safeguarding, and parenting. I have listened to stories that reduced me to tears, sometimes in the presence of my clients, sometimes alone. My tears were not despair; they were my humanity connecting with theirs. But few issues bring me as much grief as the rampant exploitation of couples battling infertility in Nigeria’s unregulated fertility industry.

I write this not just as a professional but as someone who walked the long road of infertility. My wife and I waited 15 years before we held our first child. Along the way, we met both the noble and the ignoble. A few medical practitioners were genuine and compassionate. Too many, however, were profiteers cloaked in respectability. Their clinics were highly recommended, their reputations polished. Yet their practices left us, and countless others, scarred emotionally, financially, and spiritually.

The Exploitation of Pain

Infertility is a uniquely vulnerable condition. What nature should grant freely, some couples must pursue through grueling medical intervention. Every injection, every procedure, every failed attempt chips away at hope. The financial costs are enormous. The emotional toll is indescribable.

And yet, in Nigeria, many fertility clinics see this not as a sacred responsibility but as a business opportunity. Consider what I have witnessed and what my clients have endured:

• Fake Promotions: Clinics advertising “discounted IVF packages” only to reveal upon arrival that there is no promotion, just a bait to collect payment.
• Poor Communication: Couples chasing clinics for updates, timelines not honored, and critical stages of treatment abandoned without explanation.
• Inhuman Interactions: Staff treating clients not as human beings carrying heavy burdens but as numbers in a profit ledger.
• Life-Threatening Negligence: Two women I know nearly lost their lives at the hands of “reputable” clinics in Lagos and Abuja.
• Surrogacy Mismanagement: One client engaged in an open, legal surrogacy arrangement only to find the clinic had no real control over the process it promised.

This is not medicine. This is racketeering. It is cruelty masquerading as care.

A Massive Industry Without Regulation

Globally, Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) are highly regulated. Countries like the UK, Canada, and South Africa have frameworks that ensure safety, transparency, and ethical practice. In these systems, clinics cannot mislead clients. Contracts are enforceable. Standards of medical practice are monitored. Violators face consequences.

In Nigeria, by contrast, the industry operates in a vacuum. There is no binding regulatory framework guiding ART practice. Clinics set their own rules, draft vague contracts they rarely honor, and exploit desperate clients with impunity.

The scale of this failure is staggering. Fertility treatment in Nigeria is a massive industry worth billions of naira annually. Yet it is one of the least regulated. The Nigerian Medical Association, the Federal Ministry of Health, and other oversight bodies have largely abdicated responsibility. In this vacuum, families suffer.

The Human Cost

Infertility is not just a medical issue, it is a deeply social one. In many cultures, childlessness carries stigma. Couples are pressured by families and communities. Women, in particular, bear disproportionate blame, shame, and isolation.

Now imagine compounding that pain with exploitation. Imagine walking into a clinic already broken by years of waiting, only to be lied to, neglected, or abandoned. Imagine losing not just money but dignity, hope, and sometimes even life itself.

This is the lived reality of countless Nigerians. It is cruelty in its most refined form: profiting from pain.

Why Regulation Matters

Regulation is not bureaucracy. It is protection. It is accountability. It is compassion codified into law. Without it, quackery thrives. With it, lives are saved.

Nigeria must act. The first steps are clear:

• Establish a Legal Framework: Nigeria needs a Fertility and ART Regulation Act, modeled after global best practices, that governs clinics, contracts, and patient rights.
• Enforce Professional Standards: The Nigerian Medical Association and Ministry of Health must enforce ethical codes, monitor compliance, and sanction violators.
• Protect Patients’ Rights: Couples must have enforceable recourse when contracts are breached or medical negligence occurs.
• Create Oversight Bodies: Independent boards with patient advocates, medical professionals, and legal experts must oversee the industry.

A Call to Conscience

This is not merely a policy issue. It is a moral one. What does it mean to exploit couples at their most vulnerable point? What does it mean to treat the anguish of infertility as an opportunity for profit? It means heartlessness. It means cruelty. And it must stop.

The failure to regulate this industry is a failure of governance and a failure of compassion. But as a nation, we cannot continue to look away.

Conclusion

Nigeria prides itself on being the ‘giant of Africa.’ Yet in fertility care, an industry with life-and-death consequences for families, we operate like a failed state, as in too many other critical sectors

It is time to confront this heartlessness. It is time to make scapegoats of those who exploit pain. It is time to demand regulation that protects families, restores dignity, and ensures that no couple is further broken in the pursuit of life.

For too long, the cries of couples battling infertility have gone unheard. It is time we listened. It is time we acted. Because to profit from pain is the ultimate betrayal of humanity.

Do have an INSPIRED week ahead with the family.