Virgins Now Having Babies...

Virgins are having babies through IVF treatment at clinics across Britain.

At least 25 women have given birth in the past five years despite never having had sex.

Clinics report some clients are spending £5,000 on fertility treatment to have children now but save themselves for ‘Mr Right’.

Four major British IVF firms revealed they have helped young, heterosexual, virgin women conceive and become mothers.

Family campaigners blasted the move, claiming it was turning children into "teddy bears" to be "picked off the shelf". Maha Ragunath, from the Care Fertility clinic, Nottingham, said: “The number of single women I see has doubled over the past decade and single women now account for at least 10% of my patients.

"A lot are in their 20s, sometimes studying or doing very ordinary jobs and often living with their parents, rather than career women who have been driven and focused too much on their work. .

"When I ask why they are coming for treatment, often the response is they are ready to have a child and don’t want to wait for the right partner.

"A small percentage have never been in a relationship and never had intercourse.”

All such IVF treatment is funded privately as NHS help for IVF is only given to women who have been trying to get pregnant for two years or more.Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: “What is the child for these women? A teddy bear off the shelf?

“The message from nature is for a male and female to have a child. I’m saddened we distort this.

“The diminished role of the father is not desirable for the child . Once you start down this route, where do you stop?”

The Bishop of Carlisle, James Newcome, said that the trend would “have implications for society that would not be helpful”.

The Bishop added: “The ideal is that a child has a mother and a father who are married to each other. All the evidence shows that is the best context for a child.”

Tracey Sainsbury, senior fertility counsellor and research officer at The London Women’s Clinic, said she saw around two virgin women a year who wanted a baby.