In my mind, the decision to allow Lesbians and single women IVF treatment is a great victory.

I remember when this became an issue a few years back a couple of my friends saying “Lesbians, maybe, but single women - children need to be brought up by a loving couple.”

I argued quite strongly against this. If a woman wants a child then I believe she has a right to one. The implication of ’social infertility’, as it was described at the time, was that a woman can get pregnant if she really wants so why waist public funds on her? Therefore, if you can’t get a man and want a kid, then just pop down to your local on a Friday night pick up some young, healthy looking fella, get your rocks off, pay for his taxi home and you’ve got yourself a baby.

Perhaps more importantly, is that it implies a very narrow view of family and child rearing. The old saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is just as true now as it has always been. Child rearing should be a community responsibility. If a single mother is raising a child, the hope is that she has a strong support network who are there to look after the child and provide that child with a variety a carers providing that child with a wider range of experiences. In fact I’d argue that too many nuclear families are far to isolationist to the detriment of the child.

So this is a victory for women and the community.