Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
A discussion on reproductive health is incomplete without a mention of infertility. A large number of couples all over the world including India are infertile, i.e., they are unable to produce children in spite of unprotected sexual co-habitation. The reasons for this could be many – physical, congenital, diseases, drugs, immunological or even psychological. In India, often the female is blamed for the couple being childless, but more often than not, the problem lies in the male partner. Specialised health care units (infertility clinics, etc.) could help in diagnosis and corrective treatment of some of these disorders and enable these couples to have children. However, where such corrections are not possible, the couples could be assisted to have children through certain special techniques commonly known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Though options are many, all these techniques require extremely high precision handling by specialised professionals and expensive instrumentation. Therefore, these facilities are presently available only in very few centres in the country. Obviously their benefits are affordable to only a limited number of people. Emotional, religious and social factors are also deterrents in the adoption of these methods.
Given below are two statements:
Statement I: Couples who are unable to produce children in spite of unprotected sexual co-habitation are said to be infertile.
Statement II: Specialised health care units (infertility clinics, etc.) could help in diagnosis and corrective treatment of some infertility disorders and enable such couples to adopt children.
In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Statement I is true but Statement II is false
The passage states that infertile couples “are unable to produce children in spite of unprotected sexual co-habitation”, and that infertility clinics “could help in diagnosis and corrective treatment of some of these disorders and enable these couples to have children”.
Infertility may have physical, congenital, immunological or even psychological causes, or may follow diseases or drugs. Where the cause can be found and corrected, the couple can have a child of their own.
Statement I: Couples who are unable to produce children in spite of unprotected sexual co-habitation are said to be infertile. — True. This is how the passage defines infertile couples: they live together without any contraception and still have no children.
Statement II: Specialised health care units (infertility clinics, etc.) could help in diagnosis and corrective treatment of some infertility disorders and enable such couples to adopt children. — False. The clinics treat the disorder so that the couple can have their own children. Adoption needs no diagnosis or treatment, so “adopt” in place of “have” makes the line wrong.