Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130504
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: GLENN FRANKEL THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Long
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service this week confirmed it is giving fertility treatments to, and artificially inseminating, an unnamed woman in her twenties who says she has no intention of ever marrying or having sex.
The service says it is also counseling at least two other virgins to determine if they are suitable candidates for the treatment.
The service, a private, non-profit group that also operates Britain's largest abortion clinic, says it sees no difference between helping women who are virgins and other women, single or married, heterosexual or lesbian, who want to get pregnant.
But the disclosure set off alarm bells here inside the medical community, in the church and among politicians who said they found the whole thing unethical, unnatural and something that, as one lawmaker put it, "reduces children to the status of consumer goods."
Critics charge that the service is overstepping its mandate, and could be helping emotionally disturbed women become pregnant while participating in two fashionable but competing trends: virginity and parenthood.
Tara Kaufman, spokeswoman for the service, which receives government funding, said marital status was less important than the women's "aptitude for and commitment to sustaining loving and respectful relationships."
The service "offers infertility counseling on a non-discriminatory basis to all women who could benefit from it," she said in a statement. "These clients include women who cannot or do not wish to conceive with a male partner for a variety of reasons - social, emotional, medical and psychosexual."
Kaufman told reporters that all three candidates were desperate for a baby. The society does not screen couples to see if they are fit for parenthood, she said, so these single women should not "be made to jump through hoops."
The advisory service treats 500 to 600 women each month with artificial insemination. About 1 in 10 of the women is single, a spokesman said.
While there have been debates over the ethics of inseminating single women and lesbian couples, they have not had the emotional charge of the controversy over the impending virgin births - perhaps because none has so starkly juxtaposed ancient religious beliefs and modern science.
"If you want a can of beans, you can buy one at the shop, and some people think the same of babies," Peter Bromwich, director of an in vitro fertilization, or "test-tube baby," clinic outside London, told the London Times.
He predicted an increase in virgins seeking artificial insemination because "it is becoming fashionable to remain a virgin."
In a letter to the medical journal the Lancet, Sue Jennings of the London Hospital Medical College reported the case of a 32-year-old unmarried woman who was referred to the hospital's fertility clinic.
"The patient saw nothing unusual in her request," wrote Jennings. "She believed that medical technology would provide the answer to all her dreams, and she pictured a life abroad with a perfect child where no one would know her. . . .
"She became very angry when both the referring consultant and the psychotherapist recommended further counseling before any fertility treatment. She accused the staff of trying to control her decisions and said that treatment procedures were scientific and preferable to sexual relations."
Church officials have joined the chorus of criticism. "A child wanted because the parent wants someone to love, wanted as an act of defiance, wanted, in some extreme cases, as a kind of accessory, has to carry too much of the emotional burden of its parent's needs," said John Habgood, the Anglican archbishop of York. "It can be the victim of dangerous selfishness."
Several members of Parliament from the ruling Conservative Party also jumped in to denounce the women and the advisory service. Some called for legislation that would ban artificial insemination of virgins, while others demanded that the advisory service's tax-deductible status be rescinded.
"It is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible act than to assist a woman to have a child in this highly unnatural way," complained Dame Jill Knight, a Conservative lawmaker.
As in England, insemination of single women is legal in the United States. William Andrews, a gynecologist and executive director of the American Fertility Society, said that although he personally recommends against the practice, "If the person is well balanced, and after having psychological counseling, I'd have to say that if she insisted, you would do it." He said he knows of no case where the woman impregnated has been a virgin.
An embarrassed government said a ban on virgin births would be unworkable but insisted a law taking effect this summer would establish licensing standards for fertilization clinics that would rule out virtually all such births.
It would "make sure these treatments can only take place when the child's welfare has been considered and the need of that child for a father," said Health Minister Virginia Bottomley.
That was not good enough for some Tory legislators. "I find it personally abhorrent," said Jerry Hayes, chairman of the party's health committee. "One virgin birth for eternity is enough."
by CNB