I don’t assign it either of the possibilities you gave. I call it irresposible.
Yes, that seems like a more rational option to me too. However, I assume the donor eggs were fertilized with the husband’s sperm, so maybe they felt that was important.
Personally, I think it’s crazy to have a kid at that age. My guess is that the other kids in the family will end up raising their siblings as if they were their own children, which I don’t think is very fair to those other kids who should be allowed to have hteir own lives.
At least with adoption, you can justify it by saying that a home with aging parents who may not be around for the long haul is still better than having no family at all. But to intentionally create two more lives to put them in that situation does seem pretty selfish to me.
I think she’s out of her mind! A 60-y/o should be a grandmother or a great-grandmother, not a new mother!
I loved being pregnant and I wish I could have had another child, but if you came to me today and offered me a magic potion which would make me healthy and fertile, I’d smack you upside the head with a wet trout! Menopause means “You’ve done your time. Kick back. Chill. Send 'em home when you’re tired of them!!”
Having a baby is selfish period. You are stating that you think your genetic material has the right to propagate at the expense of all the food your lineage will consume for as long as it continues.
I don’t think being over 60 has a lot to do with it. Grandparents raise kids all the time. Certain people are more selfish than others and I don’t think it makes a difference if they are 15, 25, 35 or 60.
I think it’s selfish and irresponsible, and frankly on a personal level I find it unfathomable - I mean… is this *really * how you want to spend your old age? I would still defend her right to do it, I suppose. But for me, it falls pretty firmly into the category of “just because you *can * doesn’t mean you should.”
This is even more bizarre then that Romanian women who had kids at 67 (at least she didn’t already have children). This woman has two adult children and a 6 year old (who I assume was a natural pregnancy).
100% selfish, with a healthy dose of deluded thrown in for spice. Yes, this is exactly what would fix all the problems in the world - 60 year old women giving birth all over the place, and dying and leaving their young children for others to raise.
My new brother-in-law was a “miracle baby” - his mother wasn’t expected to be able to have any more kids, and he came along when she was about 40, I think. Here he is at 40 now, newly married and about to try to start his own family, and his mother is 80. There’s a good chance she won’t live to see his kids born; she’s certainly too old to do much with a new baby or toddler. On the other side, my husband’s parents had him at 19; he’s 38, and they’re only 57.
Adults don’t need their parents, but they really do, you know? Just like we need our grandparents and aunts and uncles. And this selfish woman can only see that she wants a new baby to play with. Thank god that at least nature will prevent most women from following in her footsteps. Until we finish screwing around with nature, that is.
It isn’t just that the latest babies will grow up with old and (very likely) increasingly unhealthy parents, or that they will probably lose those parents before they have a good chance to get themselves established in the world. The currently adult children of this couple will likely end up being sandwiched between parents and younger siblings, taking care of both of them, even as they try to deal with their own families. This seems to me to have all the earmarks of “I want what I want, and too bad for anybody else it might affect.”
I agree with whoever said it that nature itself determines this whole question. Women aren’t supposed to have babies after a certain age. I don’t like the idea of men fathering children when they’re way old, either, but at least the child has one younger parent to stick around and care for it.
Not necessarily. I know a woman who had a natural pregnancy at 57, when she’d been officially menopausal for 3 years. The same hormones that are used to trigger overproduction of ova for in-vitro fertilization in a woman of fertile years should work for a menopausal woman.
The article doesn’t mention egg donation at all, only in-vitro.
Selfish. The kids have a non-trivial chance at losing a mother at a far younger age than they should. Raising teenagers requires a bit of stamina, which she might not have in her 70s.
The embryos can be screened for Down Syndrome and other chomosomal problems before they are implanted, though, so if a person is inclined to avoid the risk, they can.
Selfish in the extreme.
When I was in my 20s I had 3 friends, also in their 20s, with dads in their 80s. All three dads died when these young men were 20 - 24. The pain of losing a parent at that young of an age can’t be overstated.
‘Cuz the news media outlets who made such a big friggin’ deal out of the happy-slappy angle of the story don’t want to do one about how the poor, stupid people have ruined their lives and the lives of their children. Seriously, I know an elderly couple who, because of mistakes they made with their own children, are now having to raise two of their grandchildren. The physical demands are nearly impossible sometimes – and these folks are quite fit for their age! To have to do that is one thing; to choose to do it is simply irresponsible.
One article I read said they wanted more children so the six year old wouldn’t be lonely…
International countries do. Only a few will allow you to adopt much into your 40s (China I know prefers older parents - but cuts off at 49, India’s cut off is 55). Most start cutting off in your 30s, so a post fertility mature couple may not have many options. Rules relax if you are looking towards special needs kids.
Highly selfish, but hits a sore spot for me right now. My sister and her husband postponed kids until she was in her late 30s and he was in his late 40s. He is not a healthy man - no one expects him to live to see those kids graduate high school. And she is now in chemo. So there is a higher than average chance that someone else will raise her children. Of course, if needed I’d be there (I’m not the guardian) but until you are looking at the situation, you don’t realize how horrible it is - for the kids and for the people you are asking to step in.
There’s a huge difference between waiting a while to have kids (one of my younger brothers was 44 when his little girl was born) and using technology to defeat menopause. Your sister and her husband didn’t deliberately have children knowing someone else would raise them – what happened to your family is a tragedy that can happen to anyone. Young parents have been known to be killed by accident, disease and crime, leaving their children orphaned.
Prayers and good thoughts to you and your family – this has to be very, very hard to do.
Wait…if it’s over 60, you can’t really call it a baby, can you?
A friend of mine who had her first child at 38 was very surprised to be asked to participate in a scholarly study on elderly mothers. However, she was considered to be so technically (38’s not elderly obviously but the adjective elderly is used for 38 year old pregnant women).
When Tony Randall had kids in his late 70s I could sorta kinda understand it: he was the last of his family, he’d been married 50+ years, he had plenty of money, he wanted a legacy and assurance he’d be remembered, all that, plus he probably always figured he’d live longer than he did (being a non smoker and an exercise enthusiast) and that his wife would remarry after a suitable mourning (she was 50 years younger so she’s currently in her mid-late thirties). He’s the exception though. The fact that with significant assistance and new technology you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and harsh as it may seem I’d definitely extend the “shouldn’t have a child” opinion to 25 year olds who have reason to believe they won’t live to see it born or who know they carry booby-trapped genes.
(I have cousins who [through their other bloodlines from mine] carry the genes for Huntingdon’s disease, a particularly horrible way to die that’s killed 2 of the 4 siblings in that family before they were 40 (one of whom had children who are now teenagers and to date have shown no symptoms). Every member of that family has a 50/50 chance of passing on the degenerative disorder to any offspring, regardless of whether or not they develop the disease themselves. Of the two two survivors from the original family, one had a vaesectomy to assure he’ll never pass on the genes while his sister had one child and then had her tubes tied. She does not want to have herself or the child tested since the disease is diagnosable but unavoidable. Their nieces aren’t quite old enough to really be debating it yet but I know it has to be tearing them apart.
I won’t call my cousin selfish for having a child, but I definitely would not have under circumstances. I think partially she did it as a ‘Hail Mary’ “hopefully by the time this kid is in her 30s {when the disease usually strikes} they’ll have better treatment”.
Out of curiosity, do the hormones and reversals enable this woman to breast feed?
(And if so is it fresh or powdered milk?)
Sure, but the chances of my brother in law living to see his kids graduate from high school were already slim. So to some extent my sister and her husband made the decision that their children would face the death of one parent as children when they had them. I’m not sure that was an ethical decision (nor am I sure it was unethical). Now the possibility exists where the children will face the death of both parents - which when you start as a single parent (or in this case, knowing you are facing single parenthood) is a real possibility that has to be factored in.
(Its also annoying in that my brother in law basis his own personality issues and addiction issues on his own father dying when he was young - he’s a 50 year old man that was screwed up by the early death of his father. And yet he has chosen the same path for his children).
As someone said earlier, the risk that both parents will die when you have your kids at 21 is slim (not that I’m recommending kids at 21) - as you age that risk increases. With one parent already ill, or with a single parent in the mix, the risk fuctionally doubles. I think one of the responsibilities you take on as a parent is to commit to living until your kids reach adulthood. Now, it isn’t always possible to meet that committment (and it isn’t like you have a lot of control over it), but if there is significant risk that you won’t, I’m not sure its ethical to have kids.