Letter: Compassion can be carried too far

Sir: I can only feel sorry for those who are forced to remain childless. However, your leading article 'Paying the price to create a baby' (11 May), which argues that the NHS should fund more treatment for infertility because there is free treatment for other illnesses, abortions and contraception, is compassion carried too far. We live in crowded islands and these are difficult times. More assisted conception on the NHS would limit other services, when already some people get, to put it politely, barely adequate care.

Childless couples are sometimes said to prefer going through chronic illness, but that is often because they do not have one. To be unable to have what we have set our hearts on is extremely hard, but part of the human condition. Some might equally well claim that life is incomplete because so far they have failed to publish a novel, say, or qualify as a vet. We cannot have it all. Sometimes you just have to accept.

Yours faithfully,

CAROL COOPER

Harrow-on-the-Hill

Middlesex