ABSTRACT
Throughout the world, the availability of infertility services is the result of public health policies associated with a variety of socioeconomic, political, and, on many occasions, religious influences. Wide disparities exist in the access, quality, and delivery of infertility services within developed countries, but most of all between developed and developing countries. Relatively few of the world’s infertile population have complete equitable access to the full range of infertility treatment at affordable levels. Even in wealthy countries, such as Japan and the U.S.A., access to assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) is, or has been, marked by high disparity and inequality in the access to treatment, partly due to high costs and legislative decisions, but most of all due to the lack of recognition of infertility as a disease.
