It’s hard to take this kind of thing seriously, I know, but the left has been hammering on about group “rights” for decades now, so you shouldn’t be surprised when Christians start making the same arguments.

That’s why liberals favour liberties which apply to everyone.

Well, I won’t bother launching into the standard Marxist deconstruction of what liberal liberties amount to, because it’s just too much effort. I’ll settle for the liberal reply that what she’s talking about is sod all to do with group rights: Christians have the right not to have abortions. That right can co-exist with the rights of other groups to choose for themselves. Nice attempt to tar us with her brush though.

Oh dear, I’m gonna spread a bit of controversy again, I fear.

I think the claims made for ‘fatherhood’ were excessive and childishly put, but they do betray an underlying truth which liberals support, which we would beware of ignoring completely.

I won’t agree with what the DUP member said or the way it was said, yet there is a role for men in relationships which does consist of being more than a sperm bank or primary income source (in most cases). It is overly righteous to suggest otherwise and smacks of a left-wing bias in politicising the correctness of debating terms (careful there with the wording…).

Liberalism places an emphasis on participation in decision-making processes as part of our democratic duties, and even if it must be accepted that the final decision is made elsewhere it remains important that all relevant voices be heard – men have more than one method of input after all!

Women can isolate themselves from the concerns of their (male) partners, should they have them or be so inclined, but relationships are nevertheless founded on trust built up around dialogue.

Sadly I speak from an experience where the relationship couldn’t be sustained in the aftermath of deception.

The duties of trust and support do exist and we shouldn’t neglect this fact.

My answer to that is, I’m not a liberal. I’m a socialist, and socialism puts the emphasis on bearing responsibilities and privileges collectively.

The very concept that one man and one woman should bring up a family is an artificial construct; how many permutations of ‘the family’ have existed in European history? The very definition of the word family as we use it today would have been unrecognisable to the Romans, who coined the word familias.

I do not wish to substitute the tyranny of the nuclear family for the tyranny of the single mother or the tyranny of the homosexual parents.

Personally I would like to see child-rearing socialised, so that each child would be exposed to creative impulses and influences outside of the overarching, dictatorial powers of their parents, who we seem to expect to inherently know what to do and get on with it.

But the world is not yet my utopia any more than it is, was or ever will be the suburban, middle class, nuclear familial utopia of the Conservatives. Bearing that in mind, who are we to constrict the rights of would-be single mothers or lesbians or gays?

That the kids will be made fun of (one of the arguments made in the debate), or that males should play a role; these are not valid arguments because they are discriminatory. One doesn’t need to accept that having a child is a right in order to see that there would effectively be two sets of rules.

One in which fertile heterosexual couples can procreate regardless of parentage and all other considerations, and one in which lesbians were refused children simply because they were infertile. I say infertile because any lesbian could get pregnant via heterosexual sex simply for the purposes of bringing the child up with her partner, and no male would be involved beyond sperm donation.

If we’re not legislating the latter example, why the former?

Also you clearly ignored my comment on the quality of the males involved: does the male play a useful role if he’s a drug addict, Muslim terrorist, a wife-beater, a paedophile?

Thomas – I’m not quite sure what your point is here –

‘there is a role for men in relationships which does consist of being more than a sperm bank or primary income source (in most cases). It is overly righteous to suggest otherwise’

Yes, men can have bigger roles than this – although your implication that men are the primary income source in relationships ‘in most cases’ is rather unsupportable. But the fact that they can have bigger roles than this does not mean that they always do – nor that we ought to assume that any role a man plays in fatherhood in particular is better than no role at all.

Men’s role in the ‘traditional’ family was limited and clearly defined: that head-of-the-table patriarchal spot doesn’t exist any more, and a good thing too. Most (straight) women I know would far rather bring up children with the support of a loving male partner than otherwise. But that doesn’t mean that it should be an automatic assumption, nor that it happens in even the majority of cases.

If you’re in a relationship, should both consult each other on issues which may have a big impact on your shared arrangements?
If yes, we agree.
If no, what is the basis of the relationship?

Abstractly, who are you to define what constitutes a relationship, or how each partner should behave in order to have a ‘basis’ for their relationship?

@7
I’d have thought a relationship exists intrinsically where people relate to each other; if its personal, then directly.
Abstractly, I am not.

Allow to put it a different way then. Your simplification is inherently false. What you have said does not amount to giving each partner equal power in a relationship, in fact the power dynamic between two partners is patently not at stake. What is at stake is whether or not lesbians should be permitted to bring up children without submitting their family unit to a state-imposed condition. I have explained why I think that should not be the case and you have distorted the issue.

The role of men in relationships not should be more but is more than that of sperm donors. Except there isn’t a man in the above described relationship. Unless, therefore, you are attacking the fact of lesbian couples per se, then your point is irrelevant. In the case of a single mother your example might seem more relevant. The father himself can choose not to have anything to do with the child, or the mother can virtually choose not to let the father have anything to do with the child, barring state assessment and redress of an imbalance.

But by that point the parents aren’t in a relationship. So consulting each other is not an issue. As I have said, your point is taking the issue of a heterosexual relationship and trying (by implication) to assert that because we’ve given lesbians parental choices, that we’re somehow writing fatherhood out of the equation. Which is a nonsense. Fathers write themselves out of the equation all the time: I know mine did. In the case of lesbians and infertile heterosexual couples and single mothers, the biological father is irrelevant – and the amendment threatened the other would have imposed conditions on two of those three groups, but not the third.

It was thus discrimination.

I like the way you attempt to accuse me of distortion and then concentrate on what was not said when I was specifically trying to disagree with your burden of emphasis. That’s a typically divisive debating tactic and misses the point entirely.

It is not for government to provide favours or encourage favouritism in the aims of equality, just as it is not for anyone to project their specifically personal preferences onto anyone else.

Iagree that whether or not lesbians can raise children ought not to be subject to state-imposed conditions, but within the context of parentage, provision of genetic material from two parents is a condition imposed by nature and currently neither science nor society can do anything for homosexual couples regarding procreation – hey, you might not like it but there’s nothing to be done about it and it’s not something I can’t bothered to complain about.

Ultimately this goes down to a politicised distinction over the accurate definition of equality and how we each differ. It seems your adherence to socialism stems from a desire for equal outcomes, whereas I think this debate highlights how equality and diversity must be reconciled to provide adequate solutions.

My adherence to socialism stems from an acceptance of the historical materialist conception of society and thus from seeking to combat class oppression. For me, this is just one more example where the former ruling class attitudes simply have not died enough of a death – and taking up the part of lesbians etc is as good a way as any to bludgeon them to death. I’d much rather the more practical way of actually bludgeoning Iris Robinson to death.

What bothers me is that you think you speak for equality and diversity, yet as I’ve pointed out twice now, you are being discriminatory – and I don’t mean you are being so hands-off that you are letting nature discriminate for you, I mean you are actively displaying a tendency to discriminate against gays. Since you say I have deliberately not mentioned your arguments in my last post, allow me this time to be much more specific.

In the third paragraph of your last post, you manifestly fail to take into account that lesbians and gays just like infertile heterosexual couples whose infertility can’t be corrected by artificial methods such as ZIFT. Neither science nor society can do anything for them either – they cannot conceive without sperm from a third party donor – or indeed without inseminating a third party. However they, like lesbians, can conceive, once you factor in that third party.

So, unless you propose to ban the use of third party insemination etc altogether, then you are unnecessarily discriminating against lesbians. Hey you might not like me saying it, but there’s nothing to be done for you!

“In the third paragraph of your last post, you manifestly fail to take into account that lesbians and gays just like infertile heterosexual couples whose infertility can’t be corrected by artificial methods such as ZIFT.”

Sorry, that’s an incomplete sentence, what does it mean?

I’m concerned about your use of ‘discrimination’ as a catch-all criticism. We all discriminate against ourselves and create further limitations on future circumstances as a result of behavioral decisions, it’s an unavoidable consequence and it’s just not fair.

Do you suggest I should complain to the authorities about discrimination against my ability to drive a convertible Ferrari along the Amalfi coastline when I’m wanting to go from Edgeware Road to Paddington?

I think it is perfectly acceptable to complain about outside discrimination, but you are not making any distinctions and are trying to absolve yourself of any responsibility.

I also find it quite hard to take offence, but in your assumed characterisation of any tendencies I have you’ve managed that quite semply.

Insert the word ‘are’ after ‘gays’ and before ‘just’ – but at any rate the meaning of the sentence was perfectly clear, and I would think it beneath anyone to rest what little remains of their argument on a missing word and a completely irrelevant analogy.

My use of the word discrimination is not a catch all criticism, it is an assertion based on your desire to impose a different set of circumstances on lesbian parents than you seem to wish to impose on heterosexual parents. That is discrimination. Now are you saying that actually discrimination isn’t always a bad thing, or are you saying that you’re not discriminating?

If the former, then sure, it’s not always a bad thing – but discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual preference, disability and so forth is, shall we say, bad discrimination. If the latter, you have yet to engage with a point I’ve repeatedly made and you’ve repeatedly ignored. From the point of view of a third party, there is no difference between inseminating one partner of a lesbian couple or one of a heterosexual couple.

Unless you can demonstrate a clear difference in these circumstances, then I am forced to conclude that actually you just don’t wish to see lesbians inseminated, and are using talk of equality and diversity to cover your real feelings.

David, you are much mistaken.

I would not propose any imposition on anyone, however it is an honest recognition that homosexual partnerships exist in different circumstances than heterosexual partnerships. That is not my wish, that is the way it is.

Are you suggesting that nature is discriminatory? Is nature a Bad Thing? Do you conceive of existence only in theory?

However, whenever I engage I do try to provide satisfaction… so, for your pleasure only… I ignored your request to differentiate between the theoretical types of individuals to be subjected to insemination because I see only individuals, therefore there is nothing to argue and nothing to add except superfluity. Does that make you happy? Short, but sweet – do you have a smile on your face? Can I get off now?

Frankly, if you want to be intellectual about this, you are indulging in a logical fallacy by trying to prove a negation. It’s mind wank, and I see it as a waste of time.

Yes, the smile on my face at your rhetorical rubbish is positively beatific. Incidentally you picked the wrong person to mix Aristotle with.

I am not committing the logical fallacy of trying to prove a negative. I am not asserting my proposition is true merely because you haven’t proven it false. My proposition is that you are discriminating against lesbian women: you are prepared to allow heterosexual couples to be inseminated by a donor, but not lesbians. My proposition follows the following logical format:

1. You don’t want lesbian couples to be allowed to use third party donors of sperm or eggs.
2. You don’t mind heterosexual couples who cannot conceive any other way from using third party donors.
3. Ergo, you are discriminating against lesbian couples.

You say you see only individuals, by which I presume you mean than you don’t recognise the concept of discrimination against groups. Yeah, effectively that ends the argument by following the following logical format:

1. You’re a twit.

The end.

David, you’d be correct only if you weren’t wrong.

You assert that I wish to stop lesbians from recieving IVF treatment, yet this is, was and remains factually incorrect.

My point in this argument, from which you are trying to spin an attack on someone who doesn’t genuflect to your preferred icon of philosophic truth, was that in the contract of behavioural choice we discriminate against ourselves. The case in point being that homosexual women limit their available methods for reproducing by rejecting sexual procreation.

Your collection of insults stem from my recognition of this fact. Principally and primarily, you make the idiotic jump from my wish to clarify the starting point for any rational development of the argument to the assumption of what you think I would therefore prescribe: you put words in my mouth.

My point was to try to clarify how we reach an adequate understanding of fairness in a situation where different groups respond emotively and according to their preferred doctrine. You clearly have your doctrine and you clearly use your doctrine as a measure by which to judge others, the result of which is to create a divisive circular discussion with attempts to perpetuate and cleave wider the differences between opinions.

I, on the other hand, proposed nothing; I asked only strategic questions to establish a common ground from which agreement can be established and move debate forward.

I must ask whether you share these aims and therefore I must also question what your real aims are.

Do you wish to build a political coalition to support positive changes in law, or are you really seeking to boost your ego by desiring to be proved right?
Are you really interested in gaining equality for people who claim need, or are you pretending to suppport disadvantaged minorities in order to assert some mis-placed conception of dominance by insisting any ‘agreement’ can only come on terms you are willing to dictate?

Different people will choose to identify with the different meanings of ‘fatherhood’ from now until eternity, and it seems a lost cause to hope there might be any common ground to be found between marxists and DUP members whatsoever. On the other hand the liberal plural conception does seem to be the only philosophic stance which can bridge the gap.

David, I’m afraid to point out that both you and the DUP member appear to have both discriminated against yourselves from comprising parts of the progressive coalition (a much overused term these days, I accept). This inability on your behalf to constructively coalesce blocks of opinion places a restriction on the growth of a new mainstream majority and inevitably delays the groundswell from reaching the tipping point where change can be effected.

This must be a disappointment and a frustration for all the people who will be destined to suffer for longer as a consequence.

I’m not interested in the DUP conception of fatherhood. I’m not interested in your perception of fatherhood, or my perception of fatherhood for that matter. What I am interested in, in this article, is the manner in which the DUP have so vulgarly breached the very liberal plural conception which you seem to think can bridge the gap. It can’t bridge the gap primarily because my definition of fatherhood is one I apply to myself, theirs is one they wish to universalize and institute by statute.

Upon reading my article, you went off on a tangent about what the role of fatherhood should be, declaring that there is a greater role for men in relationships than being a sperm bank or the source of income for a family. You declared ‘the duties of trust and support do exist and we shouldn’t neglect this fact’ which is all very well but completely irrelevant to the point of the article – which was to highlight the complete illiberalism and Christian fanaticism of the Democratic Unionist Party, among others.

The only way such comments have meaning is set within the context of the second paragraph of my article – commenting on the attempt by some to legislate the role of the father into any lesbian couple and their children. Though your comment, somewhat verbose and opaque, escaped others, the implication I took from that was that you agreed with the underlying sentiments of those speaking for a ‘father’ clause in the debate. I took issue with that and highlighted certain inconsistencies within it, which, by the way, you still haven’t addressed.

Those inconsistencies ran as follows:

(1). It was an attempt to elbow room for the sperm donor into a lesbian couple with which he had little or nothing to do, without requiring that the same be the case for heterosexual couples requiring a sperm donor.

(2). It claimed fathers as a universally positive influence; the normative effect of the law would be to involve the father, regardless of who or what he was. Yet there are innumerable cases where this is simply not the case.

Pennyred then responded to you in a similar vein to some of the things I said, challenging the evident preconceived notions you seemed to display about what the role of a man in any family should be. Your answer was to falsely simplify things down to relationship issues – which have little to do with the topic, bearing in mind that the man, in many of the instances with which this issue is concerned, is not in a relationship.

As I understand it, you’re now saying that this, in fact, was your point. That it is the choice of a lesbian to be in a relationship which does not naturally admit of the possibilities for impregnation, and that it is not discrimination to see that they have to live with that choice. Certainly that seems to be the point of your first paragraph in comment 14 – and feel free to correct me when you think I’m going wrong. My impression in this regard is reinforced by what you say in comment 10.

You said:

“I agree that whether or not lesbians can raise children ought not to be subject to state-imposed conditions, but within the context of parentage, provision of genetic material from two parents is a condition imposed by nature and currently neither science nor society can do anything for homosexual couples regarding procreation…”

Herein we disagree. Actually science can do things for homosexual couples. Women can be artificially inseminated by a donor. Now, this part of the argument may fit back in with your desire for men to play a larger role in any relationship or in fatherhood than that of sperm donor. I, on the other hand, think that this should be the choice of the lesbian couple who have chosen to get impregnated. If indeed you are arguing that sperm donors should play a fatherhood role, then legislating to that effect runs into inconsistencies (1) and (2) listed above.

If you are not arguing that sperm-donors should play a fatherhood role then I don’t see that you have a point at all.

I then argued that inconsistencies (1) and (2) represented discrimination. As a result, you attacked me for preferring equality of outcome and in comment 12, you say that lesbians are discriminating against themselves, i.e. it is their choice, not ours, which is limiting the outcome, and therefore correcting the outcome shouldn’t be anything to do with the state. This line of your argument runs smack-dab into inconsistency (1). Surely the choice of any female or male to pair up with an infertile opposite-gendered partner is also self-limiting? As we do not discriminate against them on that basis, why should we discriminate against lesbians?

The only weakness, as you might call it, to this argument is that an infertile heterosexual couple already have a ‘father figure’ to stand in for the sperm donor, and therefore the sperm donor is surplus to requirements when considering the upbringing of the child. This is not the case with a lesbian couple, who have no ‘father figure’ (by the choice of their relationship) – and thus the role of the sperm donor might be considered relevant. However, this in turn runs smack-dab into inconsistency (2). Fathers are not universally positive and in any case, there is no mechanism to ensure even that specific proposed fathers are likely to be a positive influence.

From the other side of the coin, sperm donation is not the same as sexual intercourse. When you donate sperm, you are fully aware of the purpose to which it will be put – and as it is a free choice, you are also free to bear the consequences of your actions, i.e. that unless your genetic offspring, upon maturity, wishes to know who you are, you have no further role to play. If people object to lesbian couples getting inseminated by donor sperm, then I suggest that they campaign towards individual men to prevent them donating sperm. Of course that’s an exercise in futility, but at least that way your conception of choice and consequence will be set the correct way up.

Ultimately, however, I don’t see this moving the debate along, particularly when you ask such fulsome questions as “Do you wish to build a political coalition to support positive changes in law…?” Obviously that depends on what precisely you mean by ‘positive changes in law’ – I personally don’t regard any change that would require the imposition of a ‘father’ upon a lesbian couple who wish to bear children to be positive. If you do, then there is no possibility of coalition because we’re on opposite sides of the issue.

So how do you account for falling levels of sperm donorship in the UK then? What do you propose to do about it?

I propose to do nothing at all. If IVF clinics want to find ways to encourage new donors, then they can feel free. I imagine it is related to the end of sperm donor anonymity on April 1st 2005 – but I haven’t seen any polling data to suggest that, it’s just a hunch. I have no objections to IVF clinics but I don’t think that childbirth is a right – and if no one wants to donate their sperm, well, that’s that. I don’t really see what your point is at any rate.

And IVF on the NHS?

If we’re going to have a universal service of health care, let it be universal. For the purposes of insemination, I see no problem in treating the inability of lesbians to conceive as similar to the inability of infertile heterosexual couples. As I’ve laid out above, behaving in a different fashion is logically inconsistent.

So how do you account for the current system? It’s a postcode lottery.

So what? The current system isn’t perfect – I don’t think you’ve ever heard any socialist maintain otherwise. Nor does its imperfection have any bearing on the issue to hand.

Sure it does. Legal barriers are just one end of the sliding scale of access issues.

Granted, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. This is specifically in reference to legal barriers which certain parliamentarians wanted to erect. If you want to talk about all the other types of barrier and how they can be deconstructed, I’m all ears.

Haha, that’s a nice one David. First I’d be interested to know what level of barriers you consider acceptable.

What barriers, precisely, are we talking about? Barriers to lesbian couples receiving IVF treatment and being permitted to rear a child without the state-imposed ‘father figure’?

Well, I don’t consider any barriers to be acceptable. As I’ve laid out, science has allowed us to overcome the barrier that nature erected, and thus it is consistent that we grant lesbian couples the same rights as others who wish to conceive using artificial insemination by donor. I’m not aware that there are any other barriers to be considered.

I dispute the conception of morality which dictates how people should live; socially I am the view that so long as people live with reference to J.S. Mill’s doctrine of harming no other, great. I don’t consider lesbian parents do be doing their child harm – and any assertion I’ve heard made in disagreement is riddled with logical inconsistencies.

I think this is all pretty self-evident from what I’ve said before, by the way, so I’m wondering why you’re trying to string out the argument you’ve so patently lost.

I am *of* the view…. Damn typos.

Well that’s your opinion. How about financial barriers…

Of course it’s my opinion; talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

What of financial barriers? I’m a Marxist; I believe in the appropriation and socialization of the entire means of production as a way to create the necessary space for individual and material freedom. I don’t think finances should come into it.

If we’re talking about financial barriers as things are, rather than as I want them to be, then IVF should be freely available on the NHS until such times as all taxpayers are given a democratic say in the prioritisation of one treatment over another. Unless we’re allowed to rank heart disease, erectile dysfunction, AIDS, drug addiction, bronchial infection, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis and every other single condition for which an there is an available treatment, then we should simply continue with the greatest possible availability of everything.

Well, finances do come into it, that’s just the flaw in your proposition. I’m just trying to highlight the inconsistency between your wishful thinking and reality, that’s all.

I am aware that finances come into it – the allocation of resources in the NHS is a big issue, to which my long term answer is ‘overthrow capitalism.’ My short term answer is that if we recognise no ethical reason that speaks against lesbians having children and bringing them up as a couple with no unwarranted ‘father figure’ interference, then we should make all possible efforts to provision would-be lesbian parents for just that.

I believe in an NHS which is funded to the point where it has the resources to deal adequately with every single medical condition with which it might be confronted.

As I’ve said before however, and as your sudden collapse and subsequent change of tack suggest to me, I don’t think this is a question in which you are genuinely interested in doing what is right. I think you just don’t like the idea of lesbians being permitted to have IVF treatment. In short, I think you’re something of a bigot, just with less honesty than the kind I most often run into.

I think you’re being short-sighted.

If it comes down to a choice between providing chemotherapy to a cancer patient, or providing IVF to a heterosexual or homosexual woman I know someone is going to be unhappy.

However that’s no reason to call for the overthrow of the system and impose your financial preferences on unwilling members of the public just out of adherence to a dusty, moth-eaten and outdated theory which is fully open to the interpretation of those who would use it to unsavory ends.

In particular revolution is unreasonable because it provides no guarantee of policy success or policy sustainability, whereas constant and continuous reform does.

As I see it a command economy is inherently unstable and open to the dangers of misrepresentation and manipulation, whereas a diverse decentralised economy is flexible and responsive to representation based on participation.

In a marxist state there is only hobson’s choice, whereas in a fully adapted liberal economy choice provides satisfaction, while a fully open liberal society provides choices which aren’t divisive.

Regarding IVF treatment, marxists see it as a common good, while capitalists see it as a private good. So logically, marxists use common means to pay for it, while those with private means use those private means in payment.

The current situation is a mixed situation and can be tweaked to everybodies benefit. I would prefer to institute less damaging and less far-reaching liberal reforms rather than preach for the complete overthrow and destruction of everything.

I just don’t know why you get so hot under the collar that you start banging on in favour of ill thought out threatening prescriptions which wouldn’t be helpful and aren’t necessary.

I couldn’t care less what you think.

I’m far from hot under the collar; I’m simply not a reformist, proceeding from my understanding of capitalism as a system of the class exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and its perpetuation by the state. Within a fully adapted liberal, market economy, choices are constrained and lack of choice is normalised by the consistent imbalance provided by the accumulation of capital into fewer and fewer hands. Unless that is redressed by the state – and even then, wealth redistribution doesn’t solve problems endemic to capitalism, e.g. poverty. Anyway, that lengthy diatribe of yours is nice way to attempt to shift the focus of the argument.

The current system cannot be tweaked to everyone’s benefit. The welfare institutions of capitalism are limited by considerations of taxation. The state is a weapon of class dominance, and eventually taxation will see the wholesale rebellion of the ruling class – which will carry with them the petit-bourgeoisie and elements of the proletariat unless a strong socialist movement exists with the power to overthrow formal democracy and establish a proper workers’ democracy. This is how I would characterize the Thatcherite backlash of the 1980’s. Recent increases in NHS funding have only been bought by the privatisation of large chunks of NHS-aligned health provision, allowing massive profiteering even while resources are still manifestly inadequate.

Even were I to accept your proposition that the current mixed situation can be tweaked to the benefit of everyone, how are we to reconcile this with your earlier attacks on the position of supporting IVF insemination of lesbians as logical fallacy? I notice that even now, whilst trying desperately to find a purchase to grapple on to, to resist my argument, you have yet to state concretely your position on the issues, beyond feeble innuendos.

I think we can conclude from the accumulation of your statements that your support for IVF treatment for lesbian women is a just an incremental stepping stone to something else.

Hmm, that reminds me of the exact tactics used by those you diametrically oppose.

I’d be bothered to put you straight by pointing you to previous discussions on this issue here if I didn’t think it’d do you more good to go looking for yourself before you make baseless accusations.

But to save you the trouble I’ll repeat again that I’m all for IVF treatment for whoever it works for, however, it is not a primary health concern for the NHS and is more suitable to the private sector.

I support women’s rights as valuable in and of themselves. I’m not a reformist, but not even the Trots are of the opinion that reform is entirely beyond reach or even undesirable. What I am most assuredly not is a “jam tomorrow” type.

So, if you support IVF treatment for whoever it works for, what was all that nonsense about lesbians discriminating against themselves for?

As for talking about private sector health care, now instead of a moral qualification, you seek to impose a wealth qualification? I don’t know about you but I can’t afford £5,000 even I wanted to father a child more than anything else in the world.

I am aware that finances come into it – the allocation of resources in the NHS is a big issue, to which my long term answer is ‘overthrow capitalism.’

Hmmm… that’s neither a long term answer nor a short term answer to the problem of resource allocation is it? Either way, you’l l have to allocate resources since they are scarce.

There is a valid argument to be made thatat least by allocating resources according to their true cost, you make their production and distribution more efficient. By allocating them according to need, you create the free-rider problem and lots of potential for corruption (since its largely a centralised system of distribution).

I’m not sure what you’re referring to by ‘true cost’ – do you mean the combined labour value of all the relevant materials, and the opportunity cost of the medic’s labour and the transaction costs? Are we including potential externalities?

Surely by allocating according to need, one can only create a free-rider system if we believe that some people are not meeting their contribution to any common system? Indeed there are problems in deciding what constitutes a contribution, but to be blithe about it for a moment, if we transcend the social division of labour, which is one of the points of Marxism, that problem diminishes a great deal.

As for the potential for corruption, I see little problem with the concept of subsidiarity, of services being provided by the most local authority which can reliably provide such a service, so long as that local authority has the capacity to be democratically scrutinized by the workers who run it and the workers who depend upon it.

So, David, you continue to promote a theoretical system which you admit is incompletely developed even in theory!

Frankly, it leaves a lot to be desired and you should go away and think a little harder before you start proselytising your proto-religion.

It is simply childish to call for the ‘overthrow of capitalism’ by revolution, as violence becomes unavoidable and uncontrollable. Try evolutionary reforms instead, before I start reading you the fable of the hare and the tortoise.