60-year-old Calgary mother welcomes twins

[jdobbin]

Come'on people, let's call it like it is. These people were totally irresponsible. Afterall, if that was the case made against Sarah Palin for choosing to have a child at the age of 43, then this is irresponsibility times a thousand. You people could at least try to be consistent.

Which people are you referring to?

[BC_chick]

I wasn't thinking about legislation. It seems Canadian clinic have their own internal rules. I just don't know what they are.

Now the plot thickens. I don't know, instinctively I wanna say it's not their business either, but maybe there are some ethics involved since it's not just abut the person's own life, but another human being's life as well. You got me, I'm stumped. I just wanted to give my two cents about the gender bias and now I'm left pondering the ethics of age and fertility clinics.

Alright, I say yes to age-limits, but I'm conflicted about where that line should be since that's the actual subjective part of the equation. Start a poll on another thread, that should be interesting.

Put me down for 52. Not because I have anything against rounding off numbers, but because I don't think anyone (who wasn't a year or two behind) should have parents older than 70 on their high school graduation day.

Edited February 6, 2009 by BC_chick

[BC_chick]

Come'on people, let's call it like it is. These people were totally irresponsible. Afterall, if that was the case made against Sarah Palin for choosing to have a child at the age of 43, then this is irresponsibility times a thousand. You people could at least try to be consistent.

Are you kidding me? Anyone picking on Palin for having children at 43 should have their head examined. There's much better material to work with than that!

Edited February 6, 2009 by BC_chick

[noahbody]

As a general rule, if the kid has to sit on the floor to breast feed, that's too old.

[Molly]

Put me on the list as someone who thinks Palin was irresponsible, old fathers are irresponsible, and this couple is outrageous.

Kids deserve much much better than to be their parents' self-indulgence.

In the world of rights and priveleges, I do NOT think that having children is a 'right', but the highest of priveleges.

[Topaz]

I need help here with this question, was it John the Baptist's mother that was an older woman who had a baby? If not, who was it? As far as age goes what about being too young. My dad's mom had him when she was 14, 1924 and had the last in April. 1954, total 18, 1 set of twins.

[Molly]

Irresponsible is irresponsible, Topaz.

If you can't look after kids, whatever the reason, you are stretching privelege to the breaking point by creating them. Possessing them when you can't or don't look after them (or yourself) is a highly doubtful privilege, too-- for instance, I question whether that mother of the recent octuplets should be trusted with custody of any of the 14, since she is obviously irresponsible, and of poor mental health. Privelege, not right. Kids deserve better. THEY have the rights.

(BTW, your grandparents- starting when they were children, too- had 18 kids in the days when birth control was unavailable, it was the cultural normal, and the human presence was not known to be destructively large.)

[OddSox]

If you can't look after kids, whatever the reason, you are stretching privelege to the breaking point by creating them. Possessing them when you can't or don't look after them (or yourself) is a highly doubtful privilege, too-- for instance, I question whether that mother of the recent octuplets should be trusted with custody of any of the 14, since she is obviously irresponsible, and of poor mental health. Privelege, not right. Kids deserve better. THEY have the rights.

This sounds dangerously close to an endorsement of forced sterilization. Do you honestly think that you should have the ability to decide who is 'responsible' enough to have children and who is not? Do you honestly even want that responsibility?

[noahbody]

Put me on the list as someone who thinks Palin was irresponsible, old fathers are irresponsible, and this couple is outrageous.

Age is only a number. You have to factor in genetics. My dad was a young 50 when I was born. He was still playing catch with me at 72. His father and uncles all lived into their 90s.

[jdobbin]

As a general rule, if the kid has to sit on the floor to breast feed, that's too old.

If your breasts can reach to the floor, what's wrong with that?

[jdobbin]

Put me on the list as someone who thinks Palin was irresponsible, old fathers are irresponsible, and this couple is outrageous.

Between what ages should people become parents? Does it differ for men to women? Is Palin's age unacceptable for a woman but okay for a man?

Edited February 6, 2009 by jdobbin

[Oleg Bach]

Put me on the list as someone who thinks Palin was irresponsible, old fathers are irresponsible, and this couple is outrageous.

Kids deserve much much better than to be their parents' self-indulgence.

In the world of rights and priveleges, I do NOT think that having children is a 'right', but the highest of priveleges.

This is todays mentality. People not minding their own buisness...like hateful little old spinstress ladies peering though the curtains when the middle age lady comes home with a man...."I bet the slut is having sex....horrible...just horrible" - mean while she's to hateful to make human contact with a male and enjoy her life a bit. There is no other kind of endulgence than SELF endulgence. It's none of your buisness what other peoples kids deserve...if you cared so much you would be the grand and sweet benevolent king that gave every strange child what they deserved - I bet you give them nothing.

You are DAMNED right that having children is a right! Breeding is a bodily function..and the ability to perpetuate yourself genetically - and perpetuate your traditions - and perpetuate the continuing joy of raising children. Having children is just as much as a human right as EATING...What I read in that parrotted statement regarding the privledge factor is that EATING is a privledge - that sounds rather dominant to me. Control yourself and the need to control others may cease.

[Chuck U. Farlie]

The problem here is that the doctors should not have made this woman pregnant. Just because the science exists, doesn't mean we need to use it just because someone wishes so... this woman gets impregnated in India by doctors who only care about the money she will pay and not the consequences, and then she returns to Canada to have our health care system sort out the many problems because her body is too old to handle a pregnancy.

From this CBC article, just look at what this has done to her:

One of Hayer's embryos had to be terminated for medical reasons and the pregnancy with twins left her with high blood pressure and diabetes.

She also had a condition called placenta previa — where the placenta is attached to the bottom of the uterus and covers part or all of the cervix and can cause severe bleeding. Hayer spent the last four weeks in hospital so doctors could deliver the babies at a moment's notice if necessary.

Hayer began to hemorrhage this week so Birch performed an emergency C-section to deliver the twins. The bleeding was so severe he had to take out the woman's uterus. Hayer was admitted to the intensive care unit, where she required blood transfusions to stabilize her condition.

Debate in medical community

The cutoff age in Canada for IVF is between 45 and 50 years old.

Glenys Godlovitch, who chairs the health research ethics board at the University of Calgary, said there are many situations where patients return to Canada for care, after choosing to pay for treatment elsewhere.

"We need to think of this as the broader context, not just the individual circumstances here, as to what obligation is there in the Canadian health-care system or on the Canadian taxpayer to support the after-care for people who've received an initial intervention, at cost, somewhere outside of Canada," she said Thursday.

[Oleg Bach]

After hearing the fine details of this occurance - the writer is right - doctors experimenting on some delluded sixty year old lady was unconscionable.

[Molly]

Oddsox.... forced sterilization? Stretch much?

We already intervene when kids are very grossly neglected, but we don't do it often enough, soon enough nor permanently enough.

Are you advocating that children should always be left at the mercy of their parents, no matter how deficient those parents are?

[Molly]

Noahbody... do you suppose this mom will be playing catch with her boys when she's 82? Will she make it to their high school graduation?

She gets the joy of having those kids; they get to be orphaned young. I don't think I'd wish that on my kids.

[Molly]

Dobbin... Palins irresponsibility had little to do with her age.

So far as any other circumstance, age or other, if you can't reasonably expect to provide for your kids to self-sufficiency-- physical, emotional, financial self-sufficiency-- then you should be thinking twice and more before doing it, and probably deciding against.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Molly

[jdobbin]

Dobbin... Palins irresponsibility had little to do with her age.

How so?

So far as any other circumstance, age or other, if you can't reasonably expect to provide for your kids to self-sufficiency-- physical, emotional, financial self-sufficiency-- then you should be thinking twice and more before doing it, and probably deciding against.

A parent's responsibility legal children ends at age 18. If a parent believes they can provide for their kids during that time, is it okay?

My personal thoughts on the issue are that I believe the IVF clinics are right to set their own ethical limits on how young or old you are for their services. The government can protect the underaged from being taken advantage but it has a harder time setting limits on those that are older because they can't arbitrarily determine health of applicants. And then we don't have any control over services that we don't offer in Canada.

[Molly]

You are talking rules and I'm talking ethics.

How many 18-year-olds do you know who are ready- physically, emotionally, financially - to be orphaned? To whom it would be merely a sadness, and not a serious setback and trauma? We owe more to our kids than to set them up for that kind of abandonment.

Palin knew her child was seriously, irreparably genetically flawed, and actively chose to give birth in spite of it. I'm not one of the ones who thinks that such a decision is noble and self-sacrificing. In all probability, she produced a dependent whose dependence will outlive her ability to provide. That's.... self-indulgent. I neither have, nor wish to have the power to make that decision for her or others like her, but if my opinion matters, I disapprove.

[guyser]

How many 18-year-olds do you know who are ready- physically, emotionally, financially - to be orphaned?

Physically and emotionally? None. Financially, thousands.(but not personally known)

To whom it would be merely a sadness, and not a serious setback and trauma? We owe more to our kids than to set them up for that kind of abandonment.

But it happens all the time through no fault of the dead parent(s).

Palin knew her child was seriously, irreparably genetically flawed, and actively chose to give birth in spite of it. In all probability, she produced a dependent whose dependence will outlive her ability to provide. That's.... self-indulgent.

Her ability to survive is likely intact. She aint poor. She has older kids who should be able to step up, a dad who can help, a wide family net to assist.

[kimmy]

Are you kidding me? Anyone picking on Palin for having children at 43 should have their head examined. There's much better material to work with than that!

It was the early days after the nomination, so she hadn't provided the better ammunition that came later on.

Some (including at least one member here) argued that it was grossly irresponsible for her to get pregnant at her age because women over 40 have a higher chance of giving birth to a Down's Syndrome baby.

Palin knew her child was seriously, irreparably genetically flawed, and actively chose to give birth in spite of it. I'm not one of the ones who thinks that such a decision is noble and self-sacrificing. In all probability, she produced a dependent whose dependence will outlive her ability to provide. That's.... self-indulgent. I neither have, nor wish to have the power to make that decision for her or others like her, but if my opinion matters, I disapprove.

There are many people who believe that abortion is simply not an option.

What you're essentially arguing is that the world would be a better place without her Down's Syndrome baby in it. I think that

.

-k

[Molly]

But it happens all the time through no fault of the dead parent(s).

Yes it does. All sorts of terrible things happen, unanticipated... but when the risk is known to be EXTREME, fault accrues.

[Molly]

She has older kids who should be able to step up,

Yep. When their mother is long dead, and those older kids are in their seventies, beginning to lose a step, and wishing for a meaningful retirement, they'll still have a dependent sibling.

[kimmy]

Molly, I'm not sure if you're aware, but lots of people who begin life completely able-bodied in every aspect finish their lives completely dependent. Do you not have any relatives who have aged? Have you not witnessed the erosion of mental faculties due to afflictions like Alzheimer's disease, or senility, or acute loss of short-term memory? It's quite possible that Trig could be caring for one of his siblings before the end of things. All of us have a pretty fair probability of becoming a burden to our families before the end of our lives.

The idea that she should have aborted the baby once she knew it would be disabled... it sounds like eugenics to me.

A relative of mine has 2 autistic children, now in their early teens, who're likely never going to be able to participate in society in a normal way. They're probably going to be a "burden" their entire lives. But they have also made the people around them better. Their parents have learned humility and have developed the strongest bond I have ever seen. The mother's brother has 2 children the same age who spend a lot of time with the autistic children, and have developed patience and compassion and understanding beyond their years.

Having disabled children is probably not something anybody would hope for, but it can strengthen a family and build more noble character and broaden minds. Trig Palin brought attention to the issue of educational funding for special needs children, so he's brought some good into the world and he's not even one year old yet.

-k

[Oleg Bach]

A society can be judged by how they treat their weakest members. We are weak at birth and weak at the end - and very arrogant and ungrateful for our existance when we are in our prime.