THE proposed switch to an assumption of donor consent is expected to yield a substantial increase in the number of organs available for transplant.

This would be made up in part from people who were willing to donate but never got around to opting in, but also from those who are unwilling but won’t get around to opting out.

Having accepted this notion of enlisting the unwilling, couldn’t we extend such conscription from organs to sperm? Women seeking such donations form a small and specialist market and one, some may feel, not warranting serious attention, but consider the bigger picture.

According to unreconstructed Remainers, we as a country need to import hundreds of thousands of talented new workers each year to offset the inadequacies of the home-bred variety.

British women more or less happily become pregnant by their husbands, long term partners or indeed very short term ones, but often with less than satisfactory results for the future composition of the labour force. “We don’t care as long as he/she is healthy” is a natural and virtuous sentiment.

Yet it is not one which takes us far towards meeting our aspirations for national prosperity and greater equality.

There are many British men whose qualities suggest their offspring having half a chance to become useful participants in a high tech economy. Unfortunately there are not enough of them to go around women on a one-to-one basis. Suppose, however, that they were freely available on demand without any such limitation?

Might not women then rise above making desperate or unambitious choices of biological father for their children?

John Riseley, Harrogate