Saturday, February 21, 2009

I can't wait to be 60 and retire, travel.... and have babies??

So I thought I'd way in on the latest in-vitro debate. I thought I had heard it all when I read about that Californian woman who gave birth to octuplets, in addition to her already six children. But my vision of freedom 55 sure took a nose dive when I heard about the 60 year old lady who just had twins after journeying to India for in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Talk about outsourcing - you can travel to India for IVF, to the Phillipines for a kidney.......I'm guessing to a latin country for a heart? But thats beside the point...

My point is if your ICU bed is booked for post-op recovery after your c-section, then you might just be too old to have kids. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I'm wondering what these kids are going to do if their mom dies when their 15, which is not that far off as she would then be the ripe old age of 75. Is it too harsh to say that if there's 2 generations between you and your kids, you should have thought about getting a dog instead? The other controversial arm in this debate, is the fact that Canadian tax payers are paying for the after care of a patient who payed for initial treatment out of country - a treatment that is not legal in this country as the cut-off age of IVF in Canada is between 45-50 years of age.

I can't imagine how hard it would be to want children so badly in life, and then to have miscarriage after miscarriage. My heart goes out to this lady, it really does. But this is where ethics comes in, to make sure to do no harm and act in favor of the greater good and not to support individualistic desires. But I'll go out on an optimistic note in saying that there are many young parents who are unfit, so my feeling is that there are many older parents who are awesome, loving mothers and fathers. :)

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