Right to motherhood?

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Here's an article about an older woman who had kids late in life. I wanna quote something the writer said:

I could not agree more with the writer, and I'll add my two bits. People should have babies because they want to make a family. They should not have babies to satisfy their own emotional needs -- children should be the end, not the means. If you are not satisfied with your life and you think that a baby will make you happy and fill the emotional void in your life, then you're an immature idiot -- children deserve more stable and intelligent parents than that. I have absolutely zero respect for these sorts of people who have babies without having sat down and really thought about what having a child entails.

 

My wife will give birth in about 4 weeks, our 2nd child. She is turning 35 this year and we were concerned about her being to old, health issues for the baby greatly increase during pregnancy after 34. To even attempt to have children in the twilight years of your life is 100% selfish. You have to realize the dangers of what you are doing both to yourself and the baby. You put the child at all kinds of risk, not just during birth, but in their latter years as well...

That said, if I was the child, I would be eternally grateful to my mother for giving birth to me, no matter what.

Good topic LKD!

 

My understanding of the subject, is that the chances of birth defects increases after the age of 30 for the woman. This is the result of the egg cells being present since birth in a woman (sperm cells are produced constantly, making age less relevant for men), and because the reproductive system deteriorates too. Women really get the bad end of the deal, and youthfulness in women is deeply ingrained in sexuality. Children of older mothers regularly have more allergies, often have birth defects, and frequency of miscarriages increases too.

I think LKD was referring more to the woman's financial situation though, since she wasn't thinking ahead atall. That's a sign of very bad judgement, perhaps even psychosis.
I'm of the opinion that women should have complete control over life or death of a child as long as it's in their bodies, but present abortion laws are still satisfactory. Trying to forbid or control pregnancy in women is a very dangerous subject, and it would be wide open to system abuse from all angles. It's a no-go area if you ask me.
This woman obviously exhibited impaired judgement, as did other examples of this kind recently. If you want to tackle the problem at the source, then look to the individuals who make the problems. But banning assisted pregnancy at 40 will not help things, since many older couples might make the decision justly, having the means to support a baby, and whatever abnormalities may come with it.

 

Congrats on the impending bambino, Blades.

 

I agree with this completely. It's the same way with seeking a spouse or significant other. If you seek it to be complete, you'll never be happy. Two half-people can't make a whole, they just end up relying on each other, which is bad and unstable.

This I disagree with, sort of. In the end, what reason is there to have children other than emotional ones? How much do you really care about the propagation of the species? Logically, there aren't many reasons to have children short off that, and the few that are there are terrible ones: tax breaks, social benefits, extra labor to help around the house. In the end, like with most of our desires, emotions provide the significant thrust, the purpose, behind the desire for children. Those emotions should always be guided by logic, though.

I also disagree with these two. Ultimately, family is about social relationships, not biological ones. Plenty of children adopted by complete strangers end up having healty and normal family lives, and I expect these twins will, too. My biggest question is whether or not the mother made prior arraingements in case something happened to her. If so, she acted completely responsably. If not, then she should have, and should have made sure there was such a security net for her children, but there's still nothing wrong with her having the children.

Ultimately, the question of whether or not people have a right to pregnancy is a touchy one. Few governments have chimed in at all, and it's never been popular when they did (at least, that I could find). I think there are some circumstances when restrictions or conditions are appropriate, such as severe mental illness limit the mother's ability to mother, but it has to be addressed very carefully, and I see no real reason age should be a factor at all.

 

Thanks Rabbit! Got some reeeaalllly long nights ahead of me!

 

Whoever this Mindelle Jacobs is he/she clearly sacrificing fact and objectivity to stand on his/her own soapbox and complain to the world -- 'how dare an older woman have a child.'

A couple key facts missing in this article -- the woman comes from a family which a history of longevity and she died of cancer which was discovered after the twins were born. Of course, Mindelle could also be of the opinion that anyone with any possibility of dying in the next 18 years should never have a child.

The attacks by Mindelle were unwarrented and unprofessional.

 

When I saw LKD's post I thought "How old can she be?" and was about to argue that. with life expectancy being what is today, people can live much longer and she was fully in her right to get a child since she probably didn't know she'd meet an untimely end with her child still very young.

Then I read the article and saw her age. And while I was writing a long-winded rant T2 posted with some rather major points that had been mysteriously absent from the article.

That was an incredibly unprofessional piece, if Jacobs didn't even bother to research the story properly.

That said, I'm still puzzled she was able to lie about her age. Didn't the doctors notice she looked older than she claimed to be? Regardless of looks, don't they ask for some kind of official ID? If they don't then it's high time they started doing so.

Now disregarding the actual story and thinking in terms of a fictional what-if scenario where another woman knew she didn't have long to live and still went on with it: I agree with NOG more than LKD on the issue of what constitutes a family. The reason I see this particular hypothetical scenario differently is that people don't usually have babies when they know they won't be there to care for them and they don't generally choose to leave orphans behind them (yes, some parents abandon their children, but that's a crime in all Western countries and many others as well). In cases where a couple decide to have children even when they know they won't be able to care for them there is nothing anyone else can do to stop them, not until after the fact (and by then it's too late). But with IVF there is a way to stop things like this from happening. I wonder if there should be a system in place where people can be denied IVF if specific criteria are not met. Criteria don't have to be age of course, but say terminal stage cancer, or another fatal disease which significantly reduces life span.

 

My problem isn't so much with the age as the attitude. Of course having a baby makes the parents happy. But satisfying personal needs through a baby is troublesome to me, especially when it seems that having the baby is "all about ME!" for the mother.

My Mom was 37 when she had me. Dad was 50. I was an accident. They had me anyway, not because my Mom "had the baby itch" or whatever, but because they wanted to help a new human being enter the world. They were not focussed on themselves, if you get my drift.

 

A right to motherhood? Poisonous, thoroughly evil nonsense.

We're overpopulated as is, and kids born from old mothers have a higher chance to be disabled, miserable burdens on society.

Being grateful to your mother for giving birth to you... eh. Not something I'll comprehend. Either she wants to do it, or she'll end up a horrible mother anyway.

 

When I first saw that LKD said a mother had kids late in life, I assumed that it was still someone who was of child-bearing age, and this woman was in her 40s - that's what you usually mean when you say you had a kid later in life. While I agree that birth defects increase later in life, but this woman was nearly 70. Did she even have eggs left? They said she went through IVF, but was it one of her eggs that were fertilized?

This woman would be in her eighties - she was 69 when they were born!

While I am uncomfortable dictating what people should or should not do - especially when it comes to having children, and especially considering that since she received IVF for this, she did it on her own dime - I also have to acknowledge that there is a very good biological reason why women do not naturally have babies when they're in their 60s. I don't think we can do anything to stop it, but I also think that a private IVF clinic can refuse services to someone over a certain age.

Oh come on. That's like saying a life insurance company should charge the same rate to someone in the their 60s as someone in their 30s. Afterall, there's some possibility of both of them dying.

Obviously, no one would elect to have a child if they knew they were going to die before the kid's 3rd birthday. However, the odds of you dying before your child reaches adulthood are far higher if you're a good 20 years over the normal biological maximum of having children. I don't care how much history of longevity you have in your family, because we aren't talking about your family - we are talking about YOU. Even if this woman lived to be 85 - I don't think anyone here would consider that dying young - her children still would not be able to care for themselves at the time of her death. She would have had to live until at least 87, and for most people in today's world kids don't move out on their 18th birthdays. You usually end up taking care of them into their early 20s. Did this woman really think she'd be in good health throughout her 80s? Even with a good family history that was a long-shot.

 

But that's exactly the point. We aren't talking about a statistically randomized individual. We're talking about someone with a documented medical and family history, and family histories matter. They're no guarantee, but they do matter. From what we've heard, this woman was far more likely to survive to 89 or older than the average person, and the average woman today has good odds of living that long already.

That all depends on the details of the family history and individual medical history. There are people that, at 85, are more active than most 20-year-olds today. Things like that also tend to run in families to some degree or another (depends on how much lifestyles are inherrited).

In other words, you can't argue that we're talking about a specific individual and then ignore that individual's history in favor of a statistical average.

 

Aldeth, I don't agree with her decision myself, but I am really against the press deciding to villify the woman without showing the complete story. I was not defending the woman so much as attacking the reporter.

We live in a fairly insulated society in the US -- we move away to wherever the job takes us and our children go to wherever their job will take them. Some remain close, but I think on average there is little sense of family unity in the US. This appears to be the slant of the article and most opinions presented condemning the woman. Yet, other family members cared for the children during the illness and will continue to raise them -- although loss of a mother is tragic, acceptance by other members of the family is fantastic (and implies a close knit extended family).

I am not willing to condemn a woman for bringing children into the world where they will be cared for and loved by family (even extended family). Nor am I willing to accept this was a 100% selfish act by the woman based on the information in the news.

 

Perhaps she was far more likely that the average person of surviving to 89, but that's not saying much as the vast majority of people do not live to be 89! Perhaps a person born today has a good chance of living to be 90, but I do not agree at all that a typical woman who today is 70 years old has "good odds" of living that long, simply because the vast majority of people do not, and those that do are typically not in excellent health.

If you are about 70 years old, have no health problems, and lead a fairly active life style, your odds of living to 90 are still poor. I'd say less than 20%. My grandmother was the picture of health when she was 70, and she maintained her good health into her early 80s, and died when she was 86. Not only is their no "guarantee" of living that long with a good medical history, the odds are very much stacked against you.

EDIT: I just did a search, and an article from 2008 stated that 16% of people live to be 90 or older - and I'm surprised it's that high.

But you also cannot ignore biology. 84% die before 90. Even if she was three times more likely to live to be 90 than the average person, she still only had a 50-50 chance.

In that case, we have no argument.

 

Aldeth, I think we need more information concerning her "family history of longevity", here. I'll bet that 16% that live to 90 show a lot of familial relationships also within that 16%. What I mean is, you're turning to statistical averages again, as opposed to real data (which is unfortunately not readily available to us). If both her parents lived to 80+ in their day, if all her siblings were still alive and in good health, including ones older than her, if her grandparents showed truely exceptional lifespans (80-ish, for example), then I'd say she was well justified. If "family history of longevity" means her parents lived to 5 years older than their statistical average, and her siblings similarly were a bit better than average, then it's not so meaningful.

Ultimately, though, she was in a much better position to make this decision for herself than we (or lawmakers for that matter) are ever likely to be.

 

I understand what you're saying NOG, but the problem is that statistical averages are one of a few useful tools we have because we cannot determine, regardless of what her family history is, how long she will live until after she dies. That's the only absolute way to determine it, but when you are attmepting to forecast a future event - something that is 20 years in the future - statistical averages are a very useful tool.

What I will agree with is that if everyone in her family lived to be 90 then there was no reason to think that she would die in her early 70s. However, if everyone in her family lived to be 90 and she lived to be 85, I do not think that would put her that far outside of the range of the rest of her family, and it still wouldn't be long enough to raise her children to adulthood.

I think my issue is that 90 is really freakin' old. I don't think anyone can be confident that they'll live to be 90 unless they are already well into their 80s. This woman had those kids when she was 69, and quite frankly I think she was too far away from 90 to determine if she had a high probability of living that long.

 

I think this article reflects closest to how I feel:

María del Carmen Bousada de Lara's death does not mean she was wrong

...and her mother lived to be 101.

 

That depends heavily on the restrictions placed on your dataset. You can take statistical averages of every airplane flight in the US over the past 50 years to determine risks to passengers, but if you are looking at a specific flight, from a specific carrier, more specific data will almost certainly yield better results. Specify the type of aircraft, it's maintenance history, it's pilot's experience, existing weather phenomena, etc and you can get better still.

If her parents lived to be 90, living through a time-period likely 20+ years earlier than she, then I'd say her odds of living up to and beyond 90 are pretty good. Remember, lifespans have been regularly increasing for a lot more than 90 years.

I agree with that, and that the doctors in question should have looked into her history better rather than just take her word for it.