Oldest mom dies, orphans toddlers; fertility treatment implicated
The boys are now here and blessings. But this is just another warning against defying one’s biological clock as well as injecting oneself with large, prolonged doses of artificial female hormones to unnaturally procreate.
From The Times, today:
A pensioner who became the world’s oldest mother at 66 through anonymous sperm and egg donations has died, leaving her twin sons orphaned and reigniting controversy over fertility treatment for older women….
María Carmen del Bousada de Lara, a single mother, died from cancer 2 years after giving birth to Christian and Pau. She was 69.
Ms Bousada learnt that she had a tumour before she gave birth to her sons at a clinic in Barcelona in December 2006.
The retired shop worker, one of 4 children from a middle-class family, sold her house in Cádiz to raise the £36,000 needed for the in vitro fertilisation treatment in America. Later she admitted lying to doctors about her age, claiming that she was 55 to get round age limits at the Pacific Fertility Centre in Los Angeles. She had not told her family about the purpose of her trip – but when the boys were born the news caused outrage among them, in Spain and around the world.
The care of the twins is likely to be entrusted to family members – who will be helped by lucrative media deals – possibly to a younger generation of the family such as the boys’ cousins, who are believed to be in their 30s or 40s.
In Spain, where family values are important, Ms Bousada’s case provoked fresh calls last night for a legal limit on the upper age for fertility treatment. There is none at present in Spain….
After the birth, Ms Bousada insisted that she did not want money for her story, preferring to guard the privacy of the twins. Weeks later she sold her story to The News of the World for an undisclosed sum, telling the paper: “I have always wanted to be a mother all my life, but I have never had the opportunity or met the right man. “My mother lived to 101 years old and I have every reason to believe longevity runs in my family.” She said she felt healthy and predicted that she would see her sons grow into adulthood.
She later told a Spanish television programme she was suffering from what was thought to be breast cancer. Ms Bousada, who insisted she had no regrets, said the drugs used during her intensive fertility treatment might have helped to spread the disease.…
Vicken Sahakian, the American doctor who carried out Ms Bousada’s IVF treatment, said later: “If I had known her real age I would not have treated her. She lied to me. She faked documents, knowing that my age limit for single women is 55.”…
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I know that as a mother, one of my biggest fears is leaving my children motherless due to accident or illness or some type of misfortune. How terrible it would be for the children to not have Mommy around! I have to say that if I reached 55 (or even older) and remained childless, I wouldn’t even attempt to bring a baby into the world. The chances of leaving them motherless at that point would be too great. I would have adopted years before if I had wanted children that badly. Besides, how would I chase after active young children at that age?
It’s not about the age – it’s about tinkering with the sacred process of procreation designed by our Creator. IVF is wrong, first because it seeks to separate procreation from marital conjugal union and second because it destroys the lives of 80-90% of the embryos (newly formed persons) that are created in the process. The more we rationalize sin, the farther we remove ourselves from the protection of God’s grace.
This story brings to light again why the Catholic church teaches against artificial baby manufacturing. For her reasons alone she underwent the cost to have these babies with donors. Now she is gone and the innocent little ones don’t really know where they came from and are left motherless. The dignity of the babies- to- be in the fertility mills is never considered.
The trend that we will see with the fertility treatments is a surge in breast cancer and invitro babies left as orphans. You cannot recreate human life in a petri dish or through unnatural means without complications. Are women informed of these dangers in the fertility mills? Probably not or the risks are minimized. Keeping women in the dark so as to make the almighty dollar….
Amen, Jody.
How is this a warning against the use of fertility drugs?
As in abortion and hormonal contraception, fertility drugs tamper with a woman’s endocrine system in an unnatural way.
Yes it does have to do with IVF. The babies were created in a laboratory petri dish. These poor little boys….
And I agree completely with Jody
. This is a case of someone ( the patient) not adhering to regulations. Somewhat simlar to the octomom case where the doctor did not adhere to regulations and implanted too many embryos.the problem is not the treatment
Exactly how dilligent are these doctors when they accept money for these treatments? We don’t really know, and are there really any regulations? Fertility doctors, like abortionists, are not monitored.
I believe there are more ethics, codes and standards in a veterinarian clinic.
Jody says it best. IVF is just wrong full stop.
Having children has become about gratifying adults at the child’s expense.
Children have to right to be concieved naturally by two married parents and raised by both of them, not conceived in a petri dish and born to a single, old woman who can’t give them a father and left them orphaned as toddlers. These children don’t even know who their father is!
The biological clock exists for the protection of both women and children. Note that if she would have had children before menopause, they would likely be adults right now.
These children don’t even know who their father is!
Nor who their biological mother is. You are so right Jacqueline.
In the future we could live in a world where there will have to be a DNA test to make sure that couples planning to get married will have to rule out being siblings.
It is all about the narcisstic needs and wants of the adults. Not about the well being of the babies. Look at the Michael Jackson case. These kids must go through life wondering how many half siblings they have out there.
I wish they would close down the fertility and abortion mills. This would would weed out the wrong reasons for being a parent and get back to the true vocation of parenthood that calls couples to adopt.
Why do people get so upset about older women having babies when men in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and even beyond father children all the time? No one even comments about it! I wouldn’t want to have a child at my age (51) but don’t “reproductive rights” include the right to have a child as well as not having one?
Crazy that a person would think it is their right to have children. It is our privelege to have children and men and women alike should treat it as such with the child’s best interest being #1.
Phillymiss 1:23PM
You make an excellent point. That old gaffer Hugh Hefner doddering around in his pajamas and keeping a harem of Barbie dolls causes no eyebrows to raise, nor did his fathering children when I believe he was in his 70s. Personally I think the man looks and acts like an old fool.
We heard the argument that older women had Downs’ children because of “tired eggs”. Anyone ever hear of “tired sperm”?
The woman in the photos looks older than her self-professed 55 years. Shouldn’t the doctor have done more to verify her age than trust the documentation she presented to him? She knew she was sick with cancer before they were born. Very sad for all those concerned.
“Why do people get so upset about older women having babies when men in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and even beyond father children all the time.”
It’s women who end up doing the physically demanding work of raising the children. The older men are doing what older men do… whatever that is. :)
please see the link >
http://beware-of-the-fertility-industry.blogspot.com
We heard the argument that older women had Downs’ children because of “tired eggs”. Anyone ever hear of “tired sperm”?
Some time ago I heard a lot about it, interestingly, after a few different studies came out. Can’t find much as I’m in my phone right now.
nyp.org/news/hospital/75.html
I am surprised you can call yourselves christian! I am appalled at your judgment and criticism of a woman that you have never met! I am disgusted by your righteousness. How many young mothers lose their lives to drugs, violence, accident? These children had a mother who carried them with vigilance and determination and most importantly loved them. Why are you persecuting women who WANT to have babies and LOVE THEM as oppossed to those who have babies to get a check from the government. These babies were loved in the most pure and blessed way and they will feel that through the rest of their lives!
Please spend your time in a more productive way and certainly you can find more christian ways to help others!
I’m not a christian, but I am pro-life, and I think this woman was foolish for waiting so long to procreate (and destroying any and all assets she would’ve had to pass on to her children when she inevitably died soon after in the process). It is for this very reason I decided to have my children relatively early in life. At least I can chase them when I need to do so…If I find it hard to keep up with my kids at times, I cannot imagine what this woman must have been feeling. I think this endevor was ridiculous, and I think she put her desire for children ahead of common sense…I mean, when one is surprised by being tasked with providing and caring for a child, that’s one thing, but going well out of one’s way in order to get a child with neither the ability nor resources required to care for said child, that…I mean…I respect the freedom this woman had to accomplish this feat…but I do not and will not respect the lack of forsight and illogic this woman displayed in her actions.
I am surprised you can call yourselves christian! I am appalled at your judgment and criticism of a woman that you have never met! I am disgusted by your righteousness.
Hilarious, Allison! I assumed this was irony.
How many young mothers lose their lives to drugs, violence, accident?
And we’re all condoning that, as you can see.
These children had a mother who … loved them.
Not enough to provide them with a loving father, though.
These babies were loved in the most pure and blessed way and they will feel that through the rest of their lives!
Sentimental codswallop.
Please spend your time engaged in more rational discourse.
Just while we’re here, would you care to give us a definition of “Christian”? Thanks.
Two orphaned toddlers raised by relatives. Now that’s love.
Thank you Allison for coming here to judge us and tell us not to judge others. Your opinion of this elderly mother means more than ours. Go figure.
Jody’s comment was spot on.
But once again what we see with this situation is that distorted view of “reproductive rights”.
If a woman can have the right to bear or not to bear her child once it’s been conceived, why would we deny her the right to have a child at 60, or 66 or 73? On what basis?
This is the bodily autonomy argument all over again.
And personally, I can’t believe this stupid doctor couldn’t see the this woman was well over 60. This was done for money, pure and simple, and no questions asked.
IVF goes against the very nature of how children are created through the martial conjunctal act. It is common sense to object to it.
Selfish old fool + money-hungry doctor = two orphans. What does this have to do with God? Nothing. What does this have to do with stupidity? Everything.
All reproduction is narcisistic – some instances more so than others. How many mothers truly tell themselves that they are doing a favor to society by procreating? Unfortunately, our tax structure is such that we do commodify procreation, in that future workers are needed to fund retirees and non-workers. Return to families funding their own needs, and private charity supplying funds to those who need them (as opposed to mandatory taxing) and no doubt we’d see a drop in unplanned pregnancies as well as children born to parents simply for financial exploitation.
Repro:
Where to begin? Certainly there are abuses in the welfare system, but that would be motivated by greed more than narcissism.
Doing a favor to society by procreating? That would be altruism. Future funding for retirees? That’s utilitarianism.
It sounds like you are arguing more against BIG government than reproduction itself. I agree with you that BIG gov is NOT the answer to ANY problem. I think anything the government can do, the private citizen can do better.