Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / July 2009

I agree. I thought it was splenetic and ill-informed, and so
apparently did a lot of the commentators.

Re. the literature, I've always wondered why Tom Jones always gets
left out of these kinds of  discussions?
Was it because he had too good a time of it?
I guess the 18th century took a more robust perspective of such
matters than the 19th.

This Huff Po article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/motherhood-is-it-ever-too_b_233916.html
is kinder and more thoughtful.

Jacob M. Appel
Posted: July 15, 2009
Motherhood: Is It Ever Too Late?

The recent death of Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, the world's
oldest confirmed mother, is likely to generate debate surrounding the
ethics of offering in vitro fertilization to women in their sixties
and seventies. The retired Spanish department-store employee gained
international attention in 2006, when, at the age of sixty-six, she
gave birth to premature twins, Christian and Pau, via caesarian
section. At that time, questioned about the moral and practical
implications of raising her young sons as a senior citizen, Bousada
said, "My mum lived to be 101 and there's no reason I couldn't do the
same." The unfortunate reality is that Bousada died before her sons'
third birthdays, likely of cancer diagnosed shortly after their
delivery. Another woman, Omkari Panwar, a seventy year-old grandmother
from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, gave birth in 2008--but her
age cannot be formally documented. Meanwhile, seventy-two year-old
Londoner Jenny Brown has reportedly spent £30,000 on IVF in the hope
of becoming the world's oldest mother. Births to women in their late
fifties and early sixties, while not yet commonplace, are no longer
international news. Whether these births are empowering or
irresponsible has been a matter of ongoing debate.

Many American fertility clinics refuse to inseminate women beyond a
set age. In Bousada's case, she had to lie to the Pacific Fertility
Center in Los Angeles, claiming she was actually fifty-five, in order
to qualify for treatment. At that time, the clinic's director, Vicken
Sahakian, expressed indignation at Brousada's deceit and promised "to
be more careful" in the future. Other hospitals set limits as young as
fifty. What is not so clear is why these clinics impose such age
restrictions. Are they concerned for the physical health of the mother
during pregnancy? Or do they merely have ethical qualms about women
embarking on child-rearing beyond a certain age?

During an off-the-record conversation with the head of one leading IVF
program, the director candidly told me that social, rather than
medical, factors were the primary determinant in his clinic's age
limit. "You have to draw a line somewhere," he said. I followed up by
asking whether his program sets any age limit for the male partners of
these women. It does not. Nor does any other American fertility
clinic, as far as I can tell. So while a sixty year-old woman with a
twenty-five year-old husband will have difficulty obtaining IVF in the
United States, a forty-nine year-old woman with an eighty-five year-
old husband will face no age limits--even though the child of the
twenty-five year-old is far more likely to have at least one parent
survive into adulthood. If these cutoffs are imposed for purely social
reasons, rather than medical ones, then they appear to be both
illogical and discriminatory. It is not even clear to me that they
should be legal. The right to IVF is only meaningful if physicians
will actually provide it. Unless clinics can do a better job of
justifying their policies on medical grounds, state legislatures
should seriously consider rules banning such arbitrary age limits--
particularly in hospitals and clinics paid for with public or publicly-
mandated funds.

Those ethicists and social critics who oppose motherhood beyond a
certain age risk adopting a troublesome double standard. Our society
has long accepted, even acclaimed, fatherhood in later mid-life. An
occasional eyebrow may rise when Tony Randall fathers children in his
upper seventies, or Saul Bellow sires a daughter at eighty-four, but a
man who becomes a dad at fifty-five or even sixty usually receives a
proverbial cigar--not a lecture on social responsibility. The only
difference between fatherhood at that age and motherhood at that age,
assuming there are no excessive health risks during pregnancy, is that
nature allows men to have children beyond fifty-five, but
technological assistance is required for women to enjoy the same
opportunities. One might question any use of IVF technology at all--
and a small minority of conservative bioethicists have done so.
However, if one believes--as I do--that IVF is a highly-valuable tool
for empowering women, and that its benefits far outweigh any
drawbacks, then one has already rejected the "naturalist" argument. Or
what may be thought of as the natural fallacy: that the natural way is
inherently preferable. (If that were so, we would also reject
antibiotics for infectious disease and allow the myopic to stumble
around without eye-glasses.) Once one rejects such an approach,
relying upon nature to oppose IVF, only in cases where much older
woman are concerned, strikes me as unreasonably arbitrary.

Critics of later-life mothering often argue that bringing a baby into
the world, when one is unlikely to accompany that infant into
adulthood, does such a child a disservice. However, one thing is
nearly certain about women who spend upwards of $50,000 attempting to
bear children: Those babies are wanted. That places these kids well
ahead of the many children born to indifferent or mildly-enthusiastic
parents. IVF mothers are also carefully screened--a process that
should filter out women likely to abuse or mistreat their offspring.
Moreover, such older mothers might have fewer years with their
children, but they likely possess a great deal of age-acquired wisdom.
Emphasizing life expectancy over the many other factors that define
successful parent-child relationships oversimplifies a deeply complex--
even mystical--equation. Needless to say, in the nineteenth century,
long before IVF, far more children lost their parents prior to
reaching majority. (This phenomenon explains why the twenty-something
heroes of Jane Austen and George Eliot novels have already inherited
their fortunes.) Our own concerns about later-life mothering may
reflect our heightened expectation that children know their parents,
and even grandparents, into adulthood, rather than any universal or
socially-essential norm.

Parenting is among the most personal choices anyone ever makes. At the
same time, no other individual decision has as significant a societal
impact. Finding a careful balance between personal autonomy and the
public welfare is often a considerable challenge. Fortunately, in the
cases of sexagenarian and septuagenarian mothers, the private benefit
is obvious--and the social harm, if any, is rather hazy. In some
cases, women like Ms. Bousada will live to be 101. In others, tragedy
may strike--much as tragedies also strike twenty-five year-old moms.
If women choose to have children into their sixties and seventies, we
should make sure that they are informed of any potential health risks
entailed. And then we should do what we always do when devoted parents
give birth: We should offer them our congratulations and our best
wishes. In this regard, the ethics of parenting are surprisingly
simple. Mothers should be judged on their love and commitment, not
their chronological ages.