When the world's first test-tube baby was born in 1978, a few distinct voices had cautioned that this far-reaching advance would almost definitely lead us into unexplored, but profound ethical waters.

Few at that time, however, could have prophesized that how intensely in vitro fertilization would help weaken personal accountability and their approval of the peculiarity between right and wrong.

There have been concerns arising now about IVF being offered by private fertility clinics around the world to women in their 50s or even 60s, apart from ethical concerns.

And in Britain, IVF is customarily offered to women, who set out to bring a child into the world with no committed father on board.

By making an allowance for scrapping its age limit on healing, along with other divisions over whom to treat, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is proposing to slither further down this slimy ethical slope.

Currently, NHS guidance says that all sterile women aged between 23 and 39, should be presented three cycles of IVF.

NICE says that its scheme is an effort to end the 'postcode lottery' under which contact to IVF on the NHS varies outrageously from one area to another.

NICE anyhow appears to be quarrelling that the greater the number of eggs in the ovary, the higher the chance of an unbeaten pregnancy.