Leader comment: More to gift of life than an app

Apps can be used for just about anything and have been brilliant in opening up the world in wide realms of our lives from commerce and travel to lifestyle or just buying a bus ticket.

Apps have made life a lot easier for us - but convenience has its limitations too.

But when it comes to using an app to choose the “elements” needed to create a new human life - which in effect means a man, a woman and a womb - it is surely a step too far to see this as just another consumer choice, a quick and easy fun way of doing things.

The existing agencies which were set up to help people with fertility problems have the breadth of experience and legal knowledge needed at what can be a highly emotional and fraught time.

While the Just A Baby app says it offers counselling and advice to those wanting to create a baby, the existing agencies will have helped hundreds if not thousands of people over the years, guiding them through the highs and lows of bringing a new life into the world.

This process is not just about “choice”. It is also about a very complex situation, one in which the established channels can best attend to the interests of everyone involved in having a baby.