Having a baby isn’t a right – it’s a joy, a miracle and a privilege

Oct 21, 2016 by

by Jemima Lewis Telegraph:

Are you single or gay? If so, I have bad news. Turns out, you’re disabled. At least, you will be soon, if the World Health Organisation changes its definition of infertility.

At present, the WHO defines infertility (which it classes as a disability) more or less as you would imagine: “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse”. A medical condition, in other words. But now it is debating whether to expand that definition, to include people who can’t conceive naturally because – well, because they’re not actually having reproductive sex.

Gay couples and single men and women – anyone who can’t have a baby because they lack a partner with the necessary kit – would be welcomed into this big new infertility tent. The revised guidelines are intended to give every individual “the right to reproduce”. Which sounds lovely, because rights always do. But what does it actually mean?

For a fertile heterosexual woman, the question seems relatively straightforward. I have the right to reproduce; or at any rate, you have no right to stop me. But am I actually entitled to a baby? Of course not: I’m jolly lucky if I get one.

What complicates matters is that the reproductive playing field isn’t level. Social attitudes may have changed but biology hasn’t budged an inch. If you’re gay or single or peri-menopausal, you’ll need help to make a baby. It could just be an old friend with a turkey baster, or it could be a full obstetric team snapping on their surgical gloves. My goddaughter, and two of my son’s closest friends, were conceived by lesbian couples using donor sperm. The fact of their existence is an everyday miracle, and a joy: but is it a right? No – it remains an extraordinary privilege.

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