There was much discussion this week of the death of Maria del Carmen Brousada, who three years ago gave birth to twins at the age of 66. News of her death–and the fact that her two children were left without a mother–was carried in nearly every major newspaper and news service. Ms. Brousada’s death was noteworthy because it stirred up–again–the whole hornet’s nest of whether women her age should be banned from receiving fertility treatments.
One of the more neutral articles ran on–of all places–Fox News, but it quoted a decidedly un-neutral party:
Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said the organization recommends that assisted conception generally not be provided to women beyond the natural age of menopause.
“The rationale for all that is that nature didn’t design women to have assisted conception beyond the age of the natural menopause…once you get into the mid-50s, I think nature is trying to tell us something,” Pacey told The AP.
He added: “I think many people would worry about providing fertility treatment to women in their 60s. I think as a general rule, to embark on pregnancy when you may not see your child go to university is potentially a very difficult situation.”
Sorry, Dr. Pacey, I’m going to call bullshit on both these “reasons.”
Firstly, nature did not design the human reproductive system to do a lot of things it now routinely does. It didn’t design men to have erections on demand at 70. It didn’t design women–like me–to delay child-bearing for decades by taking hormones that stop ovulation. It didn’t design us to give birth by removing the baby through the abdominal wall. What nature designed us to do stopped troubling the medical community a long time ago.
Secondly, the whole “Oh, what about teh babeez?” cry doesn’t take into account that parents die all the time and leave their children behind. Mommies dying is always a dreadful thing. But so is daddies dying and I don’t see any bio-ethicists trying to stop men in their 60s from fathering children under the same rationale. If the sole concern here is: “She’ll die soon, so she has no business having a baby”, then we should deny men the same right, especially because men have a shorter life expectancy, and thus are even MORE likely to die when their children are young.
Should we deny fertility assistance to people who “may not live to see their children go to university?” I’d argue that it’s a very serious slippery slope. If we did decide to help only people with who can expect a long life post-childbirth, what’s the cut-off? That they must be of an age that they will live until their child is 16? 18? 21? That they have no pre-existing health conditions that might potentially shorten their lifespan? Because lots of people can be expected to die younger than the Western life expectancy of mid-70s.
Consider: a dear friend of mine in her mid-30s just had her first child with some help from fertility treatments. She has relapsing-remitting MS and while she’s healthy now, it’s possible that her MS will kill her before her child reaches adulthood. This is also true of a colleague who is having a child via a surrogate because chemotherapy for breast cancer–now in remission for six years–destroyed her fertility. It’s possible, although unlikely, that the cancer will return and kill her, but if it does, it will happen sooner rather than later, when her child is young.
Should we deny those women the right to fertility assistance? They might have a shorter than average life expectancy. Then again, so would a woman who smokes or who is obese or diabetic or who carries the BRCA genetic mutation. Should we deny them fertility treatments too?
See what I mean about that slippery slope?
I wouldn’t want to have a child in my 60s. But that’s my choice. Society needs to back the fuck off women who do. Medical technology makes things possible that strike us as distasteful or against our personal code of ethics (see: abortion, organ transplant, blood transfusion, euthanasia). But that does not give society the right to police other people’s medical decisions–including fertility treatments. Unless we’re going to send the uteri police after every woman–and man–who uses fertility treatments or is at increased risk of dying when their child is young, we don’t have the right to veto anyone’s reproductive choices, no matter what their age.
That’s a very convincing argument, but I have to say that although I am not for the state or anyone else telling people to do, I do think it is ethically questionable to have children at that age, whether you are a man or a woman. Not only is it likely that your children will not have much time with you–you probably won’t have much energy and stamina by the time they get to be ten or so, and I think that’s a real shame.
@Endora: True, it’s a shame. But the same “you probably won’t have much energy or stamina by the time they get to be ten” could be said of a lot of comparatively young parents with health problems.
I agree with you entirely that it’s nobody’s effing business.
One thing, though – people with MS, particularly people with relapsing/remitting MS (like myself), have normal life expectancies. It’s a common misconception, but a misconception none-the-less.
@C-peeps: But doesn’t secondary progressive MS start out as relapsing/remitting? I know I’ve been told that. I was also told that MS symptoms abate or disappear entirely during pregnancy, which sounds kind of great.
Secondary progressive by definition does start out as R/R, but the effects on life expectancy are still limited. Someone who develops SP, or is initially diagnosed with primary progressive, still lives on average to 95% of full life-expectancy, and the slightly earlier mortality is due to increased risk of secondary diseases like pneumonia – no one dies from MS directly. But a young woman diagnosed with RR (like it sounds like your friend) will likely live a long life and end up, like everyone else, dying of something entirely unrelated to MS.
I didn’t mean to derail your thread, I just didn’t want to perpetuate the myth that MS is in any way a death sentence.
And, yes! Relapse rates do abate during pregnancy. Also, a study just came out showing that mothers with MS who breastfeed are further protected from relapses while breastfeeding and beyond.
Gotcha! Thanks for clarifying.
Oops! That’s what I get for letting my browser auto-fill the name fields! Complain-o-peeps turns into krismcn. Can’t blame it on the MS.
People who may not live to see their children go to university also include poor people, who have both a shorter life expectancy AND less ability to expect that they might see their kid in college someday.
@Becky: That’s definitely true, and I think every family has to make their own decision on that one. Some circumstances around me recently made me think about what I would do if I were in that situation, and I was leaning towards “not have kids”, for the same reasons as in my first comment–but it is really a horribly difficult question, and I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, blame parents who decide either way.
I’m with you 100%, Becks. That “but… but… NATURE!!!” excuse drives me batty. The only people who “shouldn’t” be having children are those people who don’t want to have them.
Well said, Ms. Sharper. Thank you for this post – expect to see it linked in future.
Okay, but…having a baby at 60 (whatever your gender) is an act of colossal, breathtaking selfishness. Children aren’t possessions. And not everyone who wants one should have one. Behavior like hers (or any male of the same age) is to me just an example of overindulged Westerns saying “IwantIwantIwant”-an ugly attitude when it’s about stuff and a disastrous one when it’s about kids.
It’s one thing to acknowledge that young people get sick and die unexpectedly. It’s another thing to look at someone who is clearly in the latter part of her life and endorse her decision to become a parent knowing full well that it’s just a matter of time before she herself will be in need of medical care. The odds are against her, and the kids will be the ones who have to pay.
You’re right, Becky, that there isn’t really a fair way to control this sort of thing, but as a society, I think it’s reasonable to discourage this kind of thing as strongly as possible. If you love kids, there are lots of ways to offer care and support for those in need. Leaving orphans to satisfy your ego is sickening.
But mischiefmanager, she didn’t expect to die three years later. My gramma is 85 and still keeps up with my toddler (with more patience and grace than I do). Admittedly not all day every day like me, but she’s got a lot more energy than a lot of people twenty years younger. Unless you know the case study of the woman in question, you can’t know that it was selfish. Maybe all her family lived to 100 in good health. I cannot believe that she brought those babies into the world expecting to die.
My father had a heart condition that didn’t kill him until I was 28. But it could have happened at any time, and none of us believed it would until about a week before his death. Even after he was terribly sick and in the hospital and we were talking about transplants, we all believed he’d pull through. Humans aren’t perfectly rational about that kind of thing, and I’m not sure that’s a selfish thing or a moral flaw.
I remember the movie Benjamin Button, and its this in reverse maybe .. the young parent has an OLD ugly baby and abandons him, but he’s taken in by a young woman who views him as one of ‘gods children’. Turn that around, shouldn’t old ugly parents be able to have gods children too? I may not remember the movie exactly.
I think that this is one of those things that we as a society have a gut feeling against but no real philosophical proof that it shouldn’t be permissible (for all the reasons you’ve been saying, Becky). There are obvious ways to mitigate the issue; for example, instead of having fertility treatments and giving birth to infants, she could have adopted a child that was already in adolescence, who would be much more likely to be able to be independent in the case of her death (although of course adoption has its own difficulties).
I think, though, that there is the question of her singlehood combined with her age. If she had, for example, siblings who she knew would be willing to take in her children in the case of an emergency, this would be an entirely different question. In some sense, I think the reason many people don’t object to old men/young people with terminal diseases/etc. having children is because one assumes that if that person were to die, there would be a backup guardian, whereas in this case that’s unclear. But that doesn’t mean that her actions are bad, per se, but rather that we need to improve the foster care/adoption system to the degree where we don’t consider that a terrible fate for a child.
@Av0gadro: But that’s exactly my point. Parenting *is* all day, every day. An 85 year old in perfect health is not a 30 year old and it’s not insulting the 85 year old to be honest about that. If you don’t have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to care for the child adequately until s/he is grown, you would be doing the responsible thing to wait until you are, or skip it entirely. (Yeah, I know, this would disqualify a whole lot of people from becoming parents, which I think would only be a good thing.)
@Margaret: I don’t see what God has to do with this. God is not going to provide for the kids if the parent becomes unable to. When people have kids without the means to support them, the kids suffer. I’ll say it again-children are not objects. Just because you want one doesn’t mean you should have one, and I think this country could do well to change its values to promote a little serious thought before deciding to have children.
@baraqiel: Yes, I agree, and that’s probably what mitigates the idea of old men reproducing. They usually have a young(er)woman partner, and the assumption is that she’ll be around if the dad checks out. But often enough the man doesn’t really want to be a father-he just wants to make sure his prime genes are perpetuated.
The whole idea that we must pass on our particular gene set is really nothing but a tribute to our egos. Really, does it matter if the child you raise and love came from your body (or that of your partner)? the desire to be a parent, it seems to me, is separate from the desire to produce a child that’s related to you by blood. The latter idea seems so primitive to me. It’s related to the belief that the continuation of one’s blood/clan/tribe is the reason to procreate, and, really, do we need to believe that any more?
Totally agree with you, Mischiefmanager.
thank you, mischiefmanager.
@mischiefmanager – “I think this country could do well to change its values to promote a little serious thought before deciding to have children.”
I agree, but in this case the woman in question was Spanish.
This is the quote from her that I find problematic: “but that was the only way to achieve the thing I had always dreamed of, and I did it.” The problem is, it wasn’t the only way unless, as you say, she was concerned with passing on her genes at least as much as she was interested in being a parent. I say this, however, with very little knowledge of Spanish society and how foster care/adoption works there. Anyone have more familiarity?
It occurred to me that my previous post might sound harsh to those of you who are struggling or have struggled with fertility problems. This is not something I’ve experienced personally, but I’ve seen friends and co-workers go through it, and I know the anguish and grief that infertility can cause. My remarks were meant as a general statement, not to belittle or hurt anyone who is experiencing infertility or has experienced it.
@ mischiefmanager:
I don’t think there’s any need to imply that women–or men–who want to have children are somehow just doing it as a “tribute to our egos” or because they’re “primitive.” Giving birth and raising your own children is a completely normal, healthy instinct and one that’s mostly tremendously positive. I don’t think my parents wanted me because they were egomaniacs or tribalists.
Could I love and parent a child who’s not my own? Yes. I have. But it didn’t change my own desire to have a child and I don’t like the implication that I’m being selfish or “primitive” and I should just evolve beyond that.
@baraqiel: Yes, that’s right, she wasn’t American. But we’ve done a splendid job infecting the rest of the world with our consumerist values, so we may bear some responsibility here.
@mischiefmanager: Wanting to have a child is not a “consumerist value.” That’s a very offensive thing to say.
@BeckySharper – Oh, I don’t think that everyone who wants have a biological child is selfish or primitive or what have you. But to say that that is actually the only way to be a parent is false, and it’s very telling. I think that circumstances are very important here — for this woman to want to be a parent all her life is fine, but for her to get to the point when having a biological child comes with a host of issues and then say that was the only way for her to achieve parenthood strikes me as problematic. The extent to which wanting to pass on your genes (or only wanting a child that is biological) is egotistical is entirely dependent on circumstance, I think. I certainly don’t think that most parents who have biological children are being self-obsessed, but there are a number of cases (like the hypothetical of an elderly man having a child with a younger woman and not intending to be an involved parent) when I think it’s very clearly egotistical.
@mischiefmanager – Ehhhhh I’m not sure about that. Spain isn’t exactly a developing nation. Exporting our culture through economic imperialism to countries that have nonexistant economies of their own is one thing. But this is like the Starbucks I saw in Lyon — obviously having it there dilutes the culture and Americanizes it, but for serious, if French people didn’t want it, it wouldn’t have been extremely crowded with French people all the time. They can make their own decisions, too. Moreover, America hasn’t developed in a vacuum. The culture that’s developed here is also part of global trends that aren’t fueled by us alone.
@Becky: You are absolutely right. I apologize-I phrased it badly.
IMO, wanting to have a kid, when you’re 60 and without a partner, is egotistical in the extreme and a horrible example of “IwantIwantIwant”. She said she’d always wanted a baby like it was a Jaguar or a pearl necklace. Baraqiel is right-if what she wanted was to be a parent, there were other ways to achieve that. The fact that she wanted to have a biological child is the telling point. To me, that says that her decision had less to with parenting than it has to do with self-perpetuation.
@baraquel: I take your point. I guess I’m always ready to blame consumer excess on the US, but I suppose we’re not the only guilty ones.
Excellent and thought-provoking post!
I am merrily forwarding it to many friends who don’t naturally think as broadly as you do …
Many thanks.
I agree with the disgusting double-standard-ness of it all– Calling “nature” when its convenient and “strides in science” when its not just doesn’t work. But women in their 60s SHOULDN’T be having children. Neither should men. Its entirely selfish. If you want kids, find the time in your fourties to do so. If you can’t, adopt. Hell, adoption shouldn’t be the last resort for people– it should come BEFORE the more extreme measures of reproductive technology. We should be working to make adoption cheaper while still maintaining some red tape to avoid child abductions and black market kids, not spending millions on figuring out new ways to make octogenarians parents.
Great post, and interesting comments, all. One point that sheds even more interesting light on this discussion: as I recall from wherever I read about this, the woman underwent IVF with donor eggs. If that’s true, these children weren’t biologically hers, which removes the argument of “desire to perpetuate one’s own genes.” It seems that what she wanted was the experience of pregnancy, childbirth and raising children from infancy and genetics weren’t important. As Becky said, that is a natural instinct and I’m not going to fault her for it, because I wasn’t there to know the circumstances that prevented her from doing so earlier in life. Though it’s not at all a choice I’d make were I that age.
I guess I’ve still never been convinced that there is a right to fertility treatments or a right to have children.
I definitely believe everyone has the right to choose NOT to have children, and to use birth control or abortion to achieve that.
And I believe that in the adoption and foster care process, non-traditional families (e.g. gay couples or unmarried people) should be given equal consideration with “traditional” families. But I don’t think that because I believe that the gay couple has a right to a child. Rather, it’s because I believe that the kids have a right to a good home, and screening out gay people who would be great parents means that those kids will have a harder time finding a home. A secondary reason would be that excluding gay would-be parents for no good reason unfairly stigmatizes gays, but the primary consideration in that case is the kids.
I just don’t quite get how something can be a “right” when it has such a huge impact on another person.
@Jessica: The decision TO HAVE children is just as inalienable a right as the decision NOT TO. You either have your reproductive rights or you don’t.
Your whole comment is making the case that women don’t have the absolute right to decide what to do with their uteruses. So who does?
@ShinyObjects: If it’s the case that they were donor eggs, then I’d argue even more that this was a case of “IWant”. Having kids because you want the experience of pregnancy and childbirth is precisely backwards.
@becky: Okay, let’s say that you’re in a coma. You have the right to free speech but you don’t have the physical capacity to exercise it. So your rights exist for you in the abstract, and will exist in reality once you regain the ability to communicate. If you’re past menopause, you don’t have the physical capacity to get pregnant, at least not without extensive-and costly-medical intervention. Saying we have the right to decide whether or not to reproduce doesn’t mean that we can.
Given the cost of fertility treatments, how would you decide how to allocate health care resources? Do we pay for people to go through as many cycles as they want to? Or do we decide that other needs are more pressing? I think that’s what Jessica meant when she said that there’s no right to have children or to receive fertility treatments.
@Jessica: No, oftentimes rights *do* have a direct, observable impact on others-look at the right to bear arms, for instance. And the right to free speech protects loony anti-choice protesters every single day regardless of how much their words and signs traumatize others.
@mischiefmanager:
Yes, they were definitely donor eggs. A 66 year old will not have viable ova. But I don’t see why her using donor eggs is any more unethical than a 30 year old using donor eggs. Plenty of women of childbearing age have to use donor ova because their own are not viable for whatever reason (like my friend who is 36 but lost her fertility to chemotherapy). Unless you’re arguing that no one should use donor eggs because “Having kids because you want the experience of pregnancy and childbirth is precisely backwards.”
Your coma analogy makes no sense. Being infertile is nothing like being mute and in a coma. And since infertile women–of all ages–can and do become pregnant via fertility treatments, you can’t just say “oh, she’s infertile so she has no right to have a child.” If she can get pregnant with fertility treatment, she is, technically, fertile.
As for allocating health care resources, that’s a very broad issue and I’m not going down that slippery slope in this thread. But do I think insurers should cover them? Yes, and if we had national health, I’d be fine with my tax dollars going to that. It’s worth noting that countries with national health plans can and do cover fertility treatments.
“Your whole comment is making the case that women don’t have the absolute right to decide what to do with their uteruses.”
I guess the issue here is that you’re talking about legal rights and I’m talking about moral rights. I want women to have full legal autonomy over their reproductive decisions, absolutely. I certainly don’t want laws saying that particular types of people can’t have kids. But deciding to have a child involves another person who, by definition, cannot consent to being born, so all I mean when I say there’s no absolute right to have a child is that the would-be parent has to consider the best interest of the potential child. And of course tragedy can strike anyone unexpectedly, and of course everyone’s judgment of what’s an acceptable risk will be different. That’s why this has to be a moral decision rather than a legal one- like you said in the original post, there are many different health conditions and other circumstances that people will take into consideration. Insofar as your post was about legal issues, I agree with it, but I think mischiefmanager is right to point out that children are not objects.
And I get your point, mischiefmanager, that exercising any right can affect other people, but I was trying to say that deciding whether or not another person even exists goes beyond the normal scope of “affecting other people.”
@Becky: I just don’t see how you can argue that a 66 year old is the moral or legal equivalent of a 30 year old when we’re discussing becoming a parent. The correct reason to have kids is because you want to nurture a young human being through its maturing process, because you believe you can provide that being with the love and guidance and physical resources it will need through that process. Yes, there’s no way to enforce such an ideal, but society can encourage it by expressing its encouragement or discouragement of certain actions. That doesn’t mean that any individual will decide to be guided by society’s opinion, and individuals can try to influence society in another direction (see same-sex marriage). This woman had every reason to believe that she would not e able to be such a parent and, in fact, she had good reason to believe that she would not be able to fulfill her parental duties adequately throughout the maturation period of the kids. So her reasons to go through the process could only be selfish ones. She wanted the “experience” as long as she could have it, regardless of what happened to the kids once she was no longer able to manage.
Of course I’m not arguing that use of donor eggs is selfish or wrong in and of itself. Nor is that use an indicator that the woman in question wants them solely to experience childbirth. I’m saying that if you don’t have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to fulfill your parenting duties, you should forego the experience.
I do think my analogy is on point. Just as a person in a coma is potentially conscious, infertile women are potentially fertile, not absolutely fertile. Sometimes the condition rights itself without medical intervention but more often help is necessary. So to the extent that your rights are dependent on external intervention, they are not absolute in the real world. It’s not fair, but…
Moreover, there’s no such thing as an unlimited right. The truism is that one person’s rights stop at another person’s nose, for instance. And I’d argue that cost is a factor that can limit the exercise of rights. If I want to exercise my 2nd amendment rights (God forbid), and I can’t afford to buy a gun, can I make the gun shop owner donate one to me? Of course not. If I’m infertile and want fertility treatments but I can’t afford them, should someone else pay for them? If so, for how long? I don’t mean to get into the health resources allocation argument, but it’s just not realistic to say that everyone who has a right should also have the ability to exercise it even if that means others have to provide for that.
@mischiefmanager & Jessica – I agree with you that the more important question here is one of moral rights. While I don’t think that fertility treatments should be legally restricted (because you’re right, Becky, that’s a slippery slope), there are serious philosophical questions at play here. I think that, as women, we should recognize that freedoms must be used responsibly. Our reproductive freedom is unique to our gender, and thus it is mainly the purview of women to decide what is and isn’t a responsible use of it. That means being able to say that sometimes, a woman has made a bad choice to use her reproductive freedom. I don’t think that’s a threat to our having reproductive freedom in general.
@mischiefmanager:
“I just don’t see how you can argue that a 66 year old is the moral or legal equivalent of a 30 year old when we’re discussing becoming a parent.”
A 66 year old has different moral and legal rights than a 30 year old? Hello, ageism!
@baraqiel: “I think that, as women, we should recognize that freedoms must be used responsibly. Our reproductive freedom is unique to our gender, and thus it is mainly the purview of women to decide what is and isn’t a responsible use of it. That means being able to say that sometimes, a woman has made a bad choice to use her reproductive freedom. I don’t think that’s a threat to our having reproductive freedom in general.”
Beautifully put. Brava.
Well said, baraqiel.
Yes, Becky, I do believe that a 30 year old is not the same as a 66 year old. With rights come responsibilities, and the woman in question didn’t seem to understand that. The rights may be the same in the abstract, but rights live in the real world. Her exercise of her rights (which, btw, she was only able to enjoy because she had the deep pockets to pay for her treatments) belittles the entire reproductive rights movement.
There is no legal right anywhere to reproduce. If you have a right, you have the power to exercise that right. But we know that, say, an infertile 25 year old without health care does not have the ability to access treatment. Hence, she has no effective right to reproduce. What this woman did is buy herself the ability to have children.
@mischiefmanager:
As for the fact that some women can afford treatment and some can’t, women don’t always have the power to exercise our rights–whether it’s to vote, marry, work, etc–but they SHOULD have that power. Just because fertility treatments aren’t available to everyone isn’t a reason to forbid some people from using them.
I agree strongly with barqiel’s point that it may not be a good or responsible choice for a 66 year old to have a child. Women make bad decisions about reproduction all the time. But I will absolutely defend to the death their right to make those choices, because I don’t believe anyone should be able to tell a woman what to do with her body, even when I personally disagree with her decision.
@Becky:
(Found this post via Feministing, btw.)
A quick question, firstly: as you believe that all women have the right to have children, do you believe that all men have the right to have children, too? And if so, how can we exercise this right?
I agree that there are many difficult slippery slope areas in the argument regarding older women and child-bearing. But I simply don’t believe that anyone has the ‘right’ to children. I believe that reproductive rights mean that one has the right to act TOWARDS one’s desired end, whatever that may be, and certainly without being forced to act against one’s will. For example, if I want children nobody should be able to force me against my will to take the Pill or to get an abortion! If I don’t want children nobody should be able to prevent me from accessing contraception or an abortion, should that contraception fail.
But, not forcing people to act against their will =/= people having the right to get whatever they want. You have the right to act according to your will but you don’t have the right to get everything you want. Including children.
@Claire: That’s a really provocative question. Hmm…
I believe that men absolutely have the right to have children too. The main difference–and it’s a huge one–is that a man cannot have biological children without the active participation of a woman, whereas women can have children without the active participation of men (via donated sperm, usually). Unfortunately, as we know, men’s right/desire to have children is often forced upon women against their will.
I do think that if someone is denied fertility treatments based on the kind of “bioethical” reasoning cited in this post, that woman is being denied her reproductive rights. I am very leery of the medical establishment making the decision that one woman deserves a chance to bear a child and another doesn’t.
Becky, you raise a key point. Our reproductive rights, whatever they are, are to some extent held hostage by the medical profession. If ethical decisions are to be made about childbearing, no self-appointed group should have the sole power to do that. It might be different if we had, say, a cabinet level ethicist or ethical panel to ponder these questions. But right now it’s the docs and the insurance companies who get to control access, and that’s not the right or fair way to do it.
I also agree with you that saying denying a woman fertility treatment because it’s “against nature” is ridiculous in the extreme. *Every* medical intervention is against nature, for God’s sake. But the other part of the guy’s remarks, poorly phrased as they may have been, express a valid concern. Who is going to care for these kids now that the mother is dead? And shouldn’t she have thought about that before embarking on her motherhood experience? Maybe no one should have the power to answer those questions except the potential mother (and father/partner, if there is one). But they should be asked. I’m hardly one of those “but what about the chiiiiiildren?” types. Nevertheless, having a kid is the biggest responsibility anyone can take on, and I wish we could find a way for potential parents to understand that and take it as seriously as it should be taken. I don’t think that’s what happened here.
I am late to this party and I just gotta say this whole idea that we should stand behind the reproductive “choices” of women because they are women is nonsense. Ageist or not raising a child is a substantial investment and the realities of the situation mean that a woman in her sixties is not only going to have a difficult time keeping up but living in good health until the child reaches the age of majority. Just because we want a child does not mean that we should have them. My pother thought is the narcissism involved in this decision. If the desire was truly to be around a child there are plenty that are already in existence that could do with some extra attention for a caring adult.
@mischiefmanager: Yes, I definitely think that if women are going to have children knowing that they’re less likely to see the child grow to adulthood, they really need to be in a situation where someone will be able to parent the child should they die. Otherwise they don’t have the child’s best interests at heart. And I wholeheartedly second your thinking that so many people–of all ages–really don’t stop to consider what an enormous commitment parenthood is before they jump into it.
@Renee: I disagree…but I won’t rehash all the points I made in the post.
Claire – If a man wants to exercise his right to reproduce, but doesn’t have a female partner for whatever reason, he can pay a surrogate to take on the pregnancy for him. Costly? Yes, but so are fertility treatments for women.
It is not clear to me that “reproductive rights” includes a “right to get pregnant.” Pregnancy at any age poses a risk (sometimes large, sometimes small) to the woman. While I agree that a woman has a legal right to not be forced to experience the risk of pregancy against her will, I am not sure that right includes the right to undertake the risk of getting pregnant. Other types of decisions regarding risks have been legally regulated. For example, in my state, I am legally required to wear a helmet on a motorcycle. It doesn’t matter if I argue that I have a right to make my own decisions and risk my own health.
Further, given that a woman’s infertility treatments involve a doctor, does she have a “right” to undertake risk that requires someone else to help her do it? Risks to both woman and fetus increase with maternal age, and it seems likely that the risks associated with fertility treatments also increase with the woman’s age. Should an infertility doctor be forced to provide fertility treatments for an elderly woman if s/he thinks that the risk to the patient is high and she could fulfill her desire to be mother in a less physically risky manner?
@BeckySharper – Yeah, I think it should be noted that the only reason we’re having this conversation is because it’s even remotely possible to prevent women like this from having children. I think we’ve all met people who aren’t fit to be parents for whatever reason and yet have kids because there’s no way to stop them that’s morally (or legally) tolerable. If we’re going to say that there are any conditions that should invalidate you from being a parent, then age is not the one I would start with, even though it’s among the easiest to control.
@pedimd – There’s a really, really clear difference between forcing someone to wear a helmet and preventing someone from choosing to get pregnant. There is no benefit to not wearing a helmet on a motorcycle besides, I guess, not getting a sweaty head. Having your head not be sweaty is a small benefit compared to the large risk of dying. Producing a child is a large benefit compared to the (now normally) small risk of pregnancy. This is normally how society makes such choices; after all, you are legally allowed to ride a motorcycle since the risk of riding a motorcycle at all is small compared to the benefit of having fast and convenient transportation.
Whether or not a doctor should be obligated to perform IVF or the like on an older woman is a different question. However, obviously it is the case that some women of Bousada’s age are healthy enough are healthy enough to undergo a pregnancy and deliver children, as she did so and appears to have died of unrelated causes.
Pedimd has hit on something important, IMO. The right to get pregnant is not the same as the right not to get pregnant. Because getting pregnant requires cooperation from at least one other party. In this woman’s case, medical professionals too. Does anyone have the right to strong-arm another person into helping her get pregnant? We don’t have the “right” to any medical procedure we feel we deserve. I can’t walk into my doctor’s office and demand a year’s worth of narcotics. Well I can, but he doesn’t have to give it to me.
A woman’s desire must be weighed against medical ethics and the rights of the potential resulting children, I think. I don’t support outlawing pregnancy after a certain age, but I do have ethical problems with it.
@SarahMC: “A woman’s desire must be weighed against medical ethics and the rights of potential resulting children.”
Okay, but who gets to weigh and decide? And the “rights of potential resulting children” is an argument frequently used by conservatives when they rail against unmarried or gay people who having children.
As for doctors, I suspect that the situation with older mothers would be similar to how some ob-gyns won’t prescribe contraceptives or perform abortions. Women will have to seek out the ones who will help them.