PROFESSOR Brian McCloskey recognises that he's taking a risk by dismissing fears that a change in age restrictions over Worcestershire Health Authority's treatment of infertile couples will face a human rights challenge.

The questions are this: How much of a risk is he taking? And, is he right to reject it? The line, of course, is very difficult to draw.

It's understandable that some circumstances make the chances of success in fertility treatment more likely, and others less. It also goes without saying that WHA will want to make sure that every last penny of the £85,000 available to pay for treatment achieves as much as it can.

But it won't have taken much prompting for whose with even a passing interest in the subject to scan the criteria which the authority's applying to cases and form a different view.

Firmly though the rules have been underscored, it's easy to see the question marks hovering where human rights are concerned.

For instance, while we can understand that a couple should be barred if they have living children from existing or previous relationships, how would a woman feel, being overweight through no fault of her own, on hearing that her hopes of starting a family are non-existent?

In an age which encourages women to develop careers straight from education, is it right to tell a woman of 35 that she's too old to qualify for medical help?

There are many areas of the Human Rights Act which will be used and abused by people intent of having things their way, aspects of life for which it was not designed.

As with all law, the Act will only be sharpened and defined by the outcome of court cases, as Prof McCloskey emphasises.

So far as fertility's concerned, however, the sooner the guidelines are challenged, then changed or confirmed, the better.