AbstractSome basic assumptions of the Warnock report reflect poorly-informed governmental and public thinking, and lead to the report's undesirable conclusions. In particular, it accepts the cultural obsession with parent-hood. Given the numbers of unwanted children and problem children, this obsession needs reversing, not reinforcing.The report and/or the debate it has generated also reflect the feeling that there is something unpleasant and sinister about research into reproduction, that ignorance of science is socially acceptable, and that repression is better than any disorder that might occur without it.