In the United States tens of thousands of children are bom each year as a result of artificial insemination. The births derive largely from the inseminations of women who are unable to have children by their husbands. Both spouses prefer this method to child adoption, for it gives the wife genuine motherhood and thereby consummates her principal biological function. It is estimated that from one to five million fertile American wives are deprived of maternity by the infertility of their husbands. The same ratio probably holds in most other Western countries.
Artificial insemination makes it unnecessary for the germinal father and mother to meet.
A physician acts as the intermediary. If the male donors were in the ninety-five percentile or above, the mothers would bear the brightest children they were capable of bearing. If the mothers were also highly gifted, then children of superior capabilities, who would never have been bom otherwise, might in some cases make important contributions to mankind. But this method of solving the problem of infertility, so potentially beneficial to everyone, has not yet been widely adopted. One reason is that few men who fit the desired qualifications are inclined to put themselves on call to a physician.