A Subtle Distinction

The world, as we know, remains so resource-rich and bare of human beings that fertility treatments can be had on the National Health Service, which is itself in such topping financial form that it can afford to hand out such treatments with no adverse effect on the health of those of us who are already here. Accordingly, a New Labour acronym is considering a relaxation of its guidelines which would allow older women to undergo IVF, given the present universal dearth of living children without parental care. The distinction between public health (the prevention and cure of illness) and private wants (such as the wish for a family coupled with a reluctance to settle for second-hand) has got rather subtle, it appears; to the best of my knowledge a banker made unhappy by poverty is not yet allowed to claim financial therapy on the NHS, though some hospitals will pay for a well-fed chaplain to inform him of the vanity of worldly wealth.