Rights to life and death are regularly aired in court, the current examples being the fight over the medical treatment of Charlie Gard, whose parents wish to give him every chance, and Noel Conway, who asks to be allowed to put an end, in the modern Swiss way, to his suffering with motor neurone disease.

Against such issues, the question of whether there is a human right to parenthood can seem self-indulgent and even minor – except, of course, to those who are unwillingly childless