Dr Peter Brinsden (left) an international authority on the ethics of assisted fertility, holds strong views on the many issues involved:
Single mothers: Single women who are not in a long-term, stable heterosexual relationship should not be treated because they cannot provide a stable family unit of mother and father.
Lesbians: Lesbian couples are not ethically entitled to treatment because, like single mothers, they cannot offer the traditional family unit.
Unmarried heterosexual couples: "They should have been living together for two years before receiving fertility treatment, but no marriage licence is necessary.
Transsexual couples: They are entitled to fertility treatment because they offer a normal heterosexual mother/father pairing. (With the term "transsexual couple", Dr Brinsden is referring to a normal woman and a partner who is a transexual man who was born physically female and has since been medically transformed into a man to the extent that he shaves and is regarded socially as male.)
Conceiving a child after death: Dr Brinsden believes that it is wrong for widows, such as Diane Blood, to harvest their dying partner's sperm without the partner's previous permission. Widows whose husbands have actually banked sperm or frozen embryos have come to him shortly after their partners' deaths to discuss conception and he has advised them to wait at least one year until they have fully grieved before deciding. None has ever returned to have her dead partner's baby.
Egg donation: Sperm donation is allowed here (in the Republic) so it is illogical for egg donation to be prohibited. Whether you are donating a male gamete or a female gamete makes no difference. I hope the guidelines will be changed.
Embryo donation: A couple who have successfully had a family through the help of infertility treatment, should be allowed to donate their remaining frozen embryos to infertile couples who cannot produce their own viable embryos. "I view it as adoption at an earlier stage in life," says Dr Brinsden.