The World Health Organisation or WHO, has termed being single or the inability to find a sexual partner as a disability. Yes, you read that right! The WHO, according to reports, plans to expand the definition of infertility and not being able to achieve pregnancy in 12 months or more after trying will be a disability. 

According to The Telegraph, in a bid to include social conditions under the umbrella of disabilities, WHO plans to rewrite their rules regarding disability, where single people will be called ‘infertile’. This, they hope, will make sure that even single men and gay men and women can start a family of their own, and they will receive the same priority as couples during the process of adoption. 

The revised guidelines are intended to give every individual “the right to reproduce”. The news, however, has not been received well by many. Like Josephine Quintavalle, director of Comment on Reproductive ethics told The Telegraph,

This absurd nonsense is not simply re-defining infertility but completely side-lining the biological process and significance of natural intercourse between a man and a woman. How long before babies are created and grown on request completely in the lab.

The intercourse dialogue was like a knife to the heart, yes. But could it have been avoided? No. There’s WHO’s Dr. David Adamson, one of the people who helped pen down the new standards and this is what he says,

It puts a stake in the ground and says an individual’s got a right to reproduce whether or not they have a partner. It fundamentally alters who should be included in this group and who should have access to healthcare. It sets an international legal standard. Countries are bound by it.

The new law can have significant outcomes in each individual country, positive or negative. The terms have not been made official yet, but they definitely seem to be moving towards it.