AN NHS fertility clinic is proposing to treat single women and lesbian couples who have no medical problems.

The reproductive medicine unit at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Trust believes it would be discriminatory to refuse artificial insemination to women who cannot conceive because they do not have a male partner.

The government has drafted a bill to remove the legal obligation for clinics to take into account a child’s need for a father before deciding whether to grant fertility treatment. This would give far greater access to insemination for healthy single women and lesbians.

Dr Francoise Shenfield, who has run the donor insemination programme at University College London Hospitals NHS Trust for 25 years, believes her hospital should change its policy on insemination as soon as the law allows it to.

She said: “Years ago, we took the decision that we would only treat [heterosexual] couples but society has changed dramatically. Now I think we ought to revise this decision and extend treatment to single women and lesbian couples.

“Given the evidence that there does not seem to be any negative impact to the offspring, I think it would be discriminatory to deny single or lesbian women treatment.”

She added: “According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), achieving one’s reproductive wish is a human right.”

Shenfield believes the NHS should treat single women who cannot conceive because they do not have a male partner as well as those who have a medical problem such as blocked fallopian tubes.

She argues that single women should not be offered NHS treatment until their mid30s, however, because, at a younger age, they still have time to find a mate.

The rising numbers of childless women have been attributed to a “Bridget Jones” generation of women who have not found a suitable partner even as they approach their 40s.

Sixteen per cent of women born in 1953 were childless by the age of 45 but this is expected to increase to 23% of those born in 1973.

In May, the Department of Health published the draft Human Tissue and Embryos bill which would remove the obligation to consider a child’s need for a father.

The proposal to offer NHS fertility treatment to women who could conceive naturally has been criticised by family campaigners who claim it is an unjustified use of public funds at a time when patients are being denied cancer and blindness drugs.

Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP, said: “It does seem to me very odd . . . [the NHS] has got its priorities very badly warped if it allows people to go blind but gives fertility treatment to women who are perfectly capable of conceiving normally.

“On the moral issue, it is wholly wrong that any child should be deliberately conceived without a father. This can happen but we should not inflict this on a child from the very outset.”

Ertan Saridogan, head of UCLH’s reproductive medicine unit, says that, although his clinic would be prepared to offer donor insemination to single women and lesbian couples, primary care trusts, which fund NHS clinics, are, so far, reluctant to pay.

Many primary care trusts state that they will fund treatment only for a medical problem and not for social reasons.

Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and a member of the Commons science and technology select committee claims that this is unjust because many heterosexual couples are offered treatment when the cause of their infertility is unknown.

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