66 year old woman pregnant

[thelong1]

Speaking of selfish mothers and irresponsible fertility clinics, was there ever an octomom thread? I'm sure it would make an interested read.

[Boozy]

The Octuplet Mother thread:

http://www.fratching.com/showthread.php?t=893

[joe hx]

if someone in their sixties wants to have kids and is able to do so via technology, i see no problem. yes, complications may arise later, but that could be any family. should people whose jobs are high-risk be banned from having kids? or people with genetic defects, like down syndrome? how is wanting kids at sixty "selfish" but not twenty? should we say when you're too young to have kids, too?

If you can't have kids, nature probably has a reason for it. Either you aren't supposed to reproduce because there is something genetically wrong with you (and evolution doesn't want you passing that on to future generations) or you're too old and you aren't supposed to be having them anymore.

this idea's getting very close to the idea of eugenics.

[anriana]

this idea's getting very close to the idea of eugenics.

It would be eugenics if I or some group of people say/s "people with <insert genetic abnormality> shouldn't have children" and campaigned to have them forcibly sterilized or something.


Nature is when people with <insert horrible disease that also makes you sterile> are unable to reproduce. Yeah it sucks if they want to have kids, but it's something different than eugenics.

Saying "if you're 60 and you can't conceive, nature is telling you something" isn't eugenics.

[joe hx]

Saying "if you're 60 and you can't conceive, nature is telling you something" isn't eugenics.

hence the "very close"

using that train of thought could also mean that "if you're 60 and you have cancer, nature is telling you it's time to die"

[Lace Neil Singer]

Strawman. Look, what do you think that the menopause is? It's nature's way of saying that a person is too old to have kids. Having fertility treatment anyway is extremely selfish and putting your own needs ahead of the child's. If a woman of that age wants kids around her, she can foster kids or even apply to be a gran; I read about in a magazine how there's organisations that older women can apply to to be an unofficial grandmother to kids who don't have grandparents for whatever reason.

The only exception to nature's cut off point is in the case of early menopause, for example in the teens or early twenties. In case you still need convincing, this is what eugenics is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Eugenics is "the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).

Now, I don't see any mention of "forbidding women who have passed menopause to have kids", do you? Let's look at another part of the article:

The "interventions" advocated and practised by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, 'promiscuous women', homosexuals and entire "racial" groups——such as the Roma and Jews——as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, their "euthanasia", and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination.

Again, no mention is made of age. In fact, I expect that had the technology been around, the Nazis would be perfectly alright with a 60 year old woman reproducing, as long as she was a perfect Aryan maiden and her sperm donor fitted their restrictions also.

In any case, throwing eugenics into this discussion looks to me suspiciously like something applying to Godwin's Law. O_o

[DesignFox]

Thank you Anriana and Lace.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Wow, I actually managed to make a reasoned argument instead of going up in smoke. XD That's a first for me.

[BlaqueKatt]

There is most certainly nothing "genetically wrong" with them, either. Other than the fertility concerns, they are completely healthy and have living parents and grandparents.

My husband's parents are "perfectly healthy"-my husband has a genetic disorder known as Marfan's syndrome-my parents were healthy I have autism-looking healthy does not mean there is no underlying genetic disorder/issue.

Robertsonian translocation is a common form of chromosomal rearrangement that in humans occurs in the five acrocentric chromosome pairs, namely 13, 14, 15, 21, and 22. It can cause infertility and is not visible or detectable without a DNA test.

From Dr Tatiana's sex advice to all creation:
:"In humans perhaps 10 percent of couples are infertile. Of those between 10 and 20 percent of cases are not due to either partner's being sterile but to a genetic incompatibility. Furthermore some, women are prone to spontaneous abortion of healthy fetuses. Again the problem often lies with interactions between the partners genes.

Study on genetic incompatibility by blood subtypes-certain blood subtypes(Rh factors that breakdown further than positive or negative) will not mix to produce viable offspring.


I'm not trying to be callous, it's just genetic issues are not something that can be seen, or are dominant in all members of a family.

Adoption is much more expensive than many types of fertility treatments

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree

Multi-cycle IVF up to 3 cycles-$16,000 to $27,500
infant Adoption-$5,000 to $40,000-averavge $20,000
Foster care adoption-either no cost or minimal cost
they have a nice chart for comparing adoptions-pros/cons etc



and for those with a strong constitution this story is heartbreaking-and should explain why I really don't think fertility treatments are right.



short version-couple wants their own baby, has fertility treatments thankful that "God" has granted them a child, child has horrible medical issues-lived 482 days-mostly hooked up to machines-the mother is a carrier of CF-but rather than take it it as a "sign from God" that their child is out there born to someone else waiting for them to claim it-they get pregnant again-baby dies in utero-they lament the loss of their "genetically perfect" child-and lament that they can't afford more fertility treatments.

To me that is incredibly selfish. Knowing you're a carrier of a disease that is a death sentence(cystic fibrosis-longest life expectancy is 37 years in horrible pain), knowing your first child has horrible health issues(one of them alone limited his life to under 5 years) and you still keep trying because "you want a baby".

Do what this couple did-and get a child that's already here, and in desperate need of someone who cares.

[Boozy]

Multi-cycle IVF up to 3 cycles-$16,000 to $27,500
infant Adoption-$5,000 to $40,000-averavge $20,000
Foster care adoption-either no cost or minimal cost

I said adoption was more expensive than "many" types of fertility treatments. You chose to quote the cost of the most expensive kind of fertility treatment and nothing else.

I'm also more knowledgeable about Canadian figures. For example, I know someone who is going through IVF right now. It costs about $3000. An adoption would cost her $25,000.

[BlaqueKatt]

I said adoption was more expensive than "many" types of fertility treatments. You chose to quote the cost of the most expensive kind of fertility treatment and nothing else.

and a foster care adoption costs nothing-any free fertility treatments out there-didn't think so.

I'm also more knowledgeable about Canadian figures. For example, I know someone who is going through IVF right now. It costs about $3000. An adoption would cost her $25,000.

and that's probably for a single cycle-on average it takes more than one IVF cycle to achieve pregnancy that's why I listed the 3 cycle cost. single cycle from the link I posted $9,500. average live birth rate after a single IVF cycle is 43%
and that link also lists the costs of other treatments


one of my friends and his wife have lost their house paying for fertility treatments-in 6 months they've blown through $40,000 and haven't even tried IVF yet-they're living on someone's couch and still paying for more treatments-even without a place to live.

[AFPheonix]

Fertility treatments include clomid, which for many women is all they need, and that can cost a whopping $30-40 per cycle, without insurance.

[joe hx]

Strawman

i'm confused. who's Strawman?

[blas87]

Strawman is a term that's used when someone is splitting hairs, so to speak.

[AFPheonix]

Actually, it's more when someone misrepresents their opponent's position to be a similar, far more exaggerated argument, instead of just addressing what the opponent said in the first place.
In this case, saying that acknowledging woman's natural end to her ability to conceive is comparable to eugenics is a pretty good example of a strawman.