Woman gives birth at age 66

I didn't say 'morality', I asked if anyone can come up with a MORAL ARGUMENT as to why IVF should be capped and why a woman like this one shouldn't have been allowed to go through the procedure. This isn't a case of discrimination unless your'e mean that the poor cannot afford IVF. Older women with money can pay for IVF so where is there discrimination? Also there are many disabled people who would not be allowed to drive but are still allowed to have children, so that example doesn't hold much water.

In case the term 'Moral Argument' confused you here's a little lesson for you:

http://www.ling.rochester.edu/~feldman/philosophy105/17-moralargs.html

 

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Surprise, surprise...

And here's one back to you:

 

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She developed a complication in her 40's. She then later went on to the Ukraine in her 60's and had successful treatment. Many women have complications using IVF. Ask Bells and other women here who have had children naturally if they ever had complications during delivery and you would find the answer is yes. Bells isn't an old cow but she had complications never the less, complications that could have put both her and the life of the child in danger. Are you suggesting that no one should have children in case there are complications?

So what is your moral argument against IVF procedures being done on older women? And at what age should it be capped?

 

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The article did not say what the complication was. I wonder...

Let's be clear.

It's not my job to pander to how YOU think I should express my arguments.
You requested that someone point out a moral argument.
Well, I chose not to give one.

I gave one by my own standards. You don't get to call the shots on how I choose to make my arguments.

And My argument is with her choice, not about a cap.
My argument is based on logic- She's too old.
My argument is based on cold reality- She's too old.
Is it Possible (cute and fuzzy teddy bears inserted here) that it will turn out well?
Yes.
But her reasons are not strong enough to really raise that child. Her reasons are grounded in self fulfillment and she's placed that child at very high risk of a very long list of social, physical, mental and stability problems.

My argument is not a moral argument. It's a dickhead, "She's too old, the selfish old bat" argument. You can keep demanding a moral argument until you're blue in the face- I'm not obligated to give you what you want.

Apparently it's already BEEN capped. Before myself or anyone else in this thread expressed a little opinion.

Did you notice how much traveling and hokey pokey she had to play before she could find someone to stick her in a funny way? So that issue is a bit moot, isn't it?

 

What difference does it make what the complication was? The fact is that many women of all ages have 'complications' during childbirth.

I didn't ask you to respond to the question, I asked a question and if I'm not mistaken it wasn't even directed towards you. So if you don't know how to make a moral argument or know what is a moral argument, then your opinion on the matter is just another personal biased opinion based on whatever floats your boat and is hardly of any interest to me.

So unless you have anything more intellectually compelling than these:


1. My argument is based on logic- She's too old.

How is this logical? They used to say 40 and 45 was too old and now we consider it an ordinary occurrence because the technology is there. Logically a severely disabled person shouldn't be allowed to have children but they do. So what is your logic based on?

2. My argument is based on cold reality- She's too old.
Is it Possible (cute and fuzzy teddy bears inserted here) that it will turn out well?
Yes.

Obviously she isn't too old or her body would not have responded to treatment. The availability of IVF has altered the boundary of what is 'too old'. Her baby and that of many older women turned out healthy. So how is your argument logical and 'cold reality'? Reality seems to be showing us something different.


3. But her reasons are not strong enough to really raise that child. Her reasons are grounded in self fulfillment and she's placed that child at very high risk of a very long list of social, physical, mental and stability problems.

She has never given an interview so she hasn't given any reasons. All parents have children out of a sense of self-fulfillment, ALL! You have to show evidence that she placed the child at high risk. Why are not children of mentally or physically compromised parents placed at high risk?

The only risks are what could have gone wrong in the womb and she passed that test. Are there so many cases of this happening that you know of studies that show the child will be at a mental, social and risk becoming unstable?

Well?

 

Here's another for you Neverfly:

How many grandmother's have been responsible for caring for their grandchildren when their mothers or parents cannot?

Are you saying that these grandmother's who parented were in no position to do so? Or are you saying they would have been in no position to do so if they were the actual birth parent?

Do you know of any studies where children raised by grandparents were later more socially, mentally and physically at risk?

 

Irrelevant. You directed it toward me later.

Irrelevant. A moral argument is not a logical one. Morals are subjective.
If my opinion means nothing then don't bother to respond to my posts on this subject. Clearly, there's no need to.

I was raised by my grandmother. And she was too old, too.

 

You haven't provided a logical argument I showed you this by pointing out its flaws two posts back. Well unless you are going to admit that you are unstable mentally and socially then I guess your grandmother did a fairly good job

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However, there are many people who were raised by their grandparents and look back on it with loving and grateful memories. But I guess you can have as many lousy grandparents and you can lousy parents.

Its not a logical argument to state she is too old when technology has created a situation where women can conceivably conceive at 83 years old. Logically science has offered an option that nature would not; you know like walking on the moon.

 

Yes, I'm sure bearing a child at 83 is perfectly logical

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Bioethicist Professor Severino Antinori said it was possible for a woman to give a child t the mother up to the age of 83, which is why I asked if there needs to be an age cap on IVF and if so what should that age be. You are still failing to give me a logical reason why this case is in itself an illogical occurrence given her health and that of her baby. To say she may not be healthy tomorrow doesn't account for all the young mother's stricken down by cancer or other diseases leaving their young children to others to care for.

Is it logical to keep someone in a coma for years on end? Is it logical to bring children into the world that have birth defects like MS? Is it logical to produce cigarettes? Is it logical to allow very young children to have their babies? Or poor women to continue to produce children? Your use of whether something is logical or not isn't a valid argument as to what we allow and disallow in the world. I mean was it really really a logical choice to send two men to the moon? There is no logical reason for example not to eat cats and dogs, the fact that some people do not is based solely on bias and nothing else.

Spare me your eye rolling and try and give me a solid logical reason or even a moral argument of why this is wrong or even 'illogical'. You haven't offered any reasons save, 'she's too old'. Well men are able to father children right into their 60's, is it logical for them to do so? :shrug:

What it seems to me is that the knee-jerk reaction is of course that this is 'wrong' somehow simply due to age considerations, I understand and share the feeling, but when it comes down to figuring out what are the real negative results of such an action I cannot come up with one save that is 'weird' and no one can come up with an argument against it save her age which obviously isn't a factor given that she produced a healthy newborn! There is a discomfort but we haven't really figured out why.

I mean to say she's too old is relative nonsense when technology has rendered age in terms of childbirth almost irrelevant!!! See what I mean now? Our resistance has to do with our bias about age and what we think seems normal, this may change however just like women having a child in her 40's is now seen as a more common occurrence with people saying '40's is the new 30's'. I don't believe we will see very many women choosing childbirth in their 6o's. I think they will prefer to travel and garden and take pilate classes or something but now that there are more cases of this I think we will also see a change in attitude. Did you read in the link where the woman's doctor in the UK was very supportive since she had a child through IVF when she was 63!!!

 

You want a logical reason why someone should not bear a child at 83 years of age?

 

Lucysnow; let's go ahead and wrap this up.

Because the EXPERTS do not agree with You. This woman ended up traveling all the way to Russia to find someone willing to just take the money.

No one else would give her IVF. They refused.

I don't think the issue is the technology (bogus) or the morality (abstract)...

It's that you Dislike the Idea that someone can be told they can't.

It's a trend for you, I've noticed. In fact, it's a pretty strong one.

So no more red herrings.

Grandparents is a red herring. In an emergency situation, it is deemed better to give children who lost parents to next of kin. But that doesn't mean they WILL go to the grandparents and yes, age can play a factor in that.
It's still preferable, in an emergency situation, than to give them to a complete stranger.

This topic is not like that. It's not an emergency situation. The parents were not lost.

It's about a woman that selfishly obsessed about wanting her own kids. That did not care about how that child might fare- Who will that child go to if she dies (A High Risk at her age)? Next of Kin? Or foster care?

She's creating the strong potential for that emergency with her senseless carelessness.

You're only real issue is that you don't like people saying she CAN'T. Well, take that up with the Doctors.

For me, I don't believe it should be on the law books.

I just think she's an idiot, a selfish one, and I expressed that. I could be wrong. Maybe they both will turn out fantastic.

I rather doubt it.

 

If you want a baby have a baby. Most baby's of 43 year old mothers will be normal and healthy. I think people are making too big of a deal about the risks tripling from minimal to three times minimal but still very small.

You probably can have a child without fertility treatment but if you wait five years you are much more likely to need fertility treatment.

Just looking at my genealogies plenty of my ancestors in the 1600s and 1700s were having babies in their late 40s. Before I did the genealogy I was under the false impression that most women could not have children in their mid 40s. If I am remembering correctly when I checked the medical information I found that most women can have babies without fertility treatment until sometime in their mid 40s to late 40s.

My great grand mother on the other hand died in child birth at age 25. Thankfully we have good obstetrics now for women who need medical intervention.

 

It won't happen in this case if the woman manages her money well.

In this case the woman seems to have plenty of money. What if she only had enough money for the fertility treatment and not a much money beyond that?

I am uncomfortable passing laws that say that certain procedures will be illegal for some people but legal for others depending on how much money they have. But I don't want poor single 60 year olds to have children. Poor single 19 year olds having children is already unfair enough to the tax payers.

What I don't see in this case is who is the back up mother should this mother die. I would not ask 25 year olds to have back up mothers but they are not likely to die soon. I am not a big fan of the foster care system. I think children losing parents while they are children is unhealthy for the children. Death of a parent is not always avoidable but and most children will handle it OK; but it should be avoided so I prefer that parents not be so old.

This does not make me queasy or morally indignant but I don't like this behavior and consider it more selfish than the normal selfishness of wanting to have a child.

 

How is it "selfish"? The kid will either NEVER EXIST, or have an old lady as a mom. The kid doesn't have the option of being born to someone else sometime later.

So if you imagine a Rawlsian "behind the veil" approach where the child was asked which is worse non-existence or suffering the pain of being loved by an old woman...which do you imagine would be chosen?

Is this supposed selfishness a result of the fact that the mother is more likely to die before the child turns 20 than a younger woman? If so, would you condemn a woman with a terminal illness who wanted to have a child? A woman in a risky line of work?

 

No I didn't ask for an reason why an 83 year old should or shouldn't be able to undergo IVF, I just offered a quote where a bioethicist said one can give a child to a woman UP UNTIL 83.

This woman in question was given IVF in her 40's and it didn't work so the treatment ended. IVF treatment in the UK is a publicly funded affair with a long waiting list and quite controversial as many do not believe it should be part of the National Health Service. Later she still had a desire and went to the Ukraine to have it done, Greece and Eastern Europe are popular places to go for this since there is no waiting list and the procedure is less than half the cost. For those who still think that the Ukraine is part of Russia I have only to say you need a revised map since the soviet union was disbanded.

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Now I never claimed the technology was bogus, I asked if it needed a regulation age cap. Please go back and show me where she was refused IVF? She wasn't told she couldn't do it, her own physician, if you bothered to read the article and not just talk out of your arse had had the same bloody procedure done at the age of 63!! Go and read through the link of births over the designated age and you will see that there have been many (in europe as well as the US) who have become pregnant because of IVF, so please i would like to know where you had the idea that these women were being refused.

I never said it was a trend 'for me' I said it COULD become a trend as there are more cases like this, one in point is the woman from India who had twins using this procedure, she lied about her age and had it done in the US. She has since died but at the time she was the oldest woman to become pregnant through IVF.

I also never said I liked or disliked anything. Looking at the list of pregnancies women are having babies in their 50's and 60's. If they were being refused treatment then they wouldn't be having them!:shrug: So what you assume is an erroneous non-argument to say the very least.

You claimed that this person is too old to parent so I asked if grandparents are too old to parent. It was responding to what you had said not bringing up a red herring.

You asked where he child would go if she died, well she is not without extended family and she is not without wealth, she has supposedly made arrangements like most parents do. I know my parents made those kind of arrangements for me and they were young parents.

You said: She's creating the strong potential for that emergency with her senseless carelessness.

What emergency? Why is she any more careless or senseless than a very poor person having a child? Or a very young parent? Or someone who is physically or mentally disabled? Actually I would put her more responsible than any of those examples and right under the too young parent.


As usual you are not really listening to my question which is this:


Outside of 'she's too old' which obviously she is not if the procedure can take, can you come up with any reason whatsoever why this procedure is detrimental to society, the woman or the child?

Does that question help break it down and simplify for you?

Again the only person who says she can't do it or she was told she couldn't do it is you.

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So regardless of your personal feelings about her or your false accusations of where I stand on the issue...let get back to whether you can offer a solid argument that isn't tinged with your own bias shall we. And it is a bias but not an argument you are offering. There are those who think 17 too young to marry, in some states its legal and in others are not, some might accuse those who marry that young of being selfish and careless and god only knows what, but still there is no logical reason outside of our bias on the subject. I'm asking you be (oh shocking) think objectively for a valid argument.

Question for you who will Never fly (at least intellectually):

Outside of 'she's too old' which obviously she is not if the procedure can take, can you come up with any reason whatsoever why this procedure is detrimental to society, the woman or the child that is above normal negative possibilities?

 

I have to agree with Lucysnow on this one.

I don't see how having the baby at her age was uniquely selfish. We don't complain blue murder about how 'selfish' it is when a teen has her baby instead of aborting it, or when a poor or disabled person chooses to have a child. So, what makes her case different?

If she had a hundred and one medical conditions, I could see the point of calling her selfish. But if she's healthy, why not?

 

Well yes this is a good point but we might enter into a slippery slope if we take a look at financial considerations when it comes to natural birth. Yet if this same woman were to try and adopt a baby she would have most definitely have been denied based on her age (they may have allowed her to adopt a teenager but I'm not quite sure). There are financial restrictions on who can adopt but I wonder if the same can be applied to someone in terms of their own egg. I wonder if this woman used her own egg

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I mean if she did not then there is another issue of whether an egg donor is able to place restrictions on who can have the egg.

I'm not sure if I would feel uncomfortable with an age cap. I think one may be warranted but my reasons for an age cap might be questionable. I feel as if women have been told that they can do everything and anything they want whenever or however they want without taking into consideration the very real restrictions of their natural biology. So women are told they have to go to college, become independent and impressive wage earners, play the field etc etc before they begin thinking of marriage and children. Inevitably many wait until they are in their 30's before committing to a relationship now many are running to fertility clinics to have their babies in their 40's. It must be incredibly stressful. Outside of this personal view I cannot see why women shouldn't take advantage of the new technology and since the possibility of conception is happening later and later in life maybe society will have to re-calculate what they consider to be normal in terms of childbirth. I mean did you hear of the grandmother in Brazil who carried her own grandchild because the mother couldn't do so? Yes its getting that bizarre (the example is in the wiki link).

Anyway it seems she has made arrangement for the future of her child which considering her wealth will probably be better than most children can hope for. Having said that there is also the possibility that she can go on for another 20 years without a hitch and then just drop dead one day when the kid is 16 and ready to take their A and O levels.

 

Lucysnow-- Your reply to my post is painfully obvious that you either did not read my post or completely misinterpreted it (which is interesting as I was quite clear as any one reading the post can see.)
I'm not going to bother with that shit again. Either get it right, or don't bother.

I disagree with your comparisons as, depending on the situations, many of those people get called selfish as well.

This woman was on the news and is currently being discussed. Just because other people are not included in the discussion doesn't mean that, should they behave in the same manner, they are not also possibly selfish.

The reason this woman's selfish desire was called into question is because she seems unconcerned about the basic risks. She may be "Healthy" for her age but she is still her age which is advanced and that includes the high risk that comes with it.
She's at the End period of her life and she's not allowing for whether or not the child she brings into the world (Not one that was already brought in) will have the full chances one would given younger parents that can keep up with a child and with a teenager and with a college student...
She could well die within the next few years. Suffer a stroke, cardiac arrest, pneumonia, that although younger people can also get- She is At High Risk of all these things where the average person is not.

In addition, it's been clear that she's obsessed over this issue. That's very unhealthy.
This speaks strongly of her selfishness but it also makes one wonder about the mental stability she has.

Should her action be illegal?

Absolutely not.

Is it possible it will all work out well?

Of course.

But that doesn't stop people from looking at the unusual situation and thinking she's a turd.
So why just this one poor old woman?
Because hers is the case being discussed and examined. But I'm certain that we can examine hundreds upon hundreds of similar situations and reach the same conclusions.