ABSTRACT
Sexual intimacy and procreation are central to human identity and functioning, and presumably have potential implications for human dignity as well. Not being able to conceive sets infertile individuals and couples apart from the fertile majority. It is estimated that some 7 million individuals, about 12 percent of those of reproductive age, have fertility problems. Research has shown that involuntary childlessness can have a significant impact on peoples’ lives (Vickers 2010). As Thomas Murray comments,
There are times when adults hunger for children. . . . When we speak of the suffering of people who want to have children but cannot, “suffering” is neither metaphor nor hyperbole: people who crave children to raise and love but cannot have them suffer because, for many of us, our children are a vital part of our own flourishing
(Murray 1996: 14).