The last few weeks have seen multiple news pieces on the pregnancies of women beyond child-bearing age - including the 70-year old who just gave birth to her first child in India via IVF.  And while I understand that this kind of thing is a light in the dark for many suffering couples who have struggled with infertility, too many aspects of this scenario make me uneasy.
For one, it seems disrespectful of our bodies. A 70-year old woman’s body is not meant to bear a child, not to mention that a 70+ year old woman’s body is not built to be running around after a young child. The way our bodies work has been moulded by years upon years of evolution – if it was ideal or good for the species to be reproducing so late in life, surely we would have the natural faculty to do so by now!
This situation is also just another example of how we, as a society, commodify human beings. We’re turning kids into something that can be bought – and that’s just not okay! Our inherent dignity means that no price can be put on our lives. If we treat people like objects, that’s how we will begin to see them.
And at the end of the day, even though it is perhaps politically incorrect to say it, I think that having kids via reproductive technology at such a late age is a selfish move – it becomes all about the parents’ (or parent’s) desires, not the good or best interests of the child in question. The fact remains that this child will probably lose its parents at a very young age, and then be left to deal with the (less than ideal) consequences of that.
Of course, it must be said that every child is a blessing – and the way he or she comes to be does not affect their worth or rights. But what do you think? For sure, we congratulate this older couple - but should we be worried for this situation to become a normal thing? Should we demand that rules and regulations be created?