Is Childbirth an Inalienable Right?- Page 2

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:27pm

"What about men who father children into their 60s, 70s, and 80s?"

Nature allows men to have that possibility. They don't need extreme medical technology and interference to achieve that just to have some Guinness world record. I can't seriously imagine these women waited until the age of 67 before attempting to get pregnant for many other reasons.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:28pm

But does that make it any more right, from the child's perspective?

[Incognito]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:29pm

Childbearing at age sixty seven is absurd, and certainly not fair on the child. However, it's pushing boundaries that's gotten mankind where it is today, for good or for bad...

When you think the original seedings started off with an apple that they were meant to look at, well...

[blueroses]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:30pm

That Guinness analogy rings totally true! Why did she wait so long in the first place?

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:30pm

I'm not judging them harshly (well, not that harshly), but I do think it's curious that the desire to bear the child seems as important as (if not more important than) the desire to just be a parent. I think it's that sort of thinking that leads to 67 year old women bearing children.

Edited for grammar.

Updated On: 1/2/07 at 02:30 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:34pm

But does that make it any more right, from the child's perspective?

It doesn't, but this thread is about using science and medicine to produce children. A man in his 80s that is still naturally able to produce children isn't the point here.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:37pm

I see your point, blueroses, and know a few people who are that obsessed with having a child naturally. Perhaps they should spend a few dollars on some counseling to find out WHY they are so obsessed with giving birth.
Of course this has a lot to do with our fear of death and leaving a legacy, which to me is highly overrated, too.

[blueroses]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 2:41pm

The upside to fertility treatments: The birth of a healthy baby. The downside to fertility treatments: when your otherwise rational, wonderful friends and family members become weepy, hormonally charged raging biatches. I guess painful, daily shots in your @ss and all sorts of equipment up your vag and massive doses of Clomid will do that to you!

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 3:04pm

Lets face it, some people just were not meant to breed. EVER. Just like some of us were not born to be NBA superstars. Damn, there goes my dream.

[chicolini]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 3:21pm

It's easy to discuss in the abstract, but if you look at it from the point of view of an individual couple struggling with infertility it gets tough very quickly.

If you want children what must it be like to see everybody around you seemingly getting pregnant so easily? How do you deal with the constant "So when are you two having kids?" comments? How do you cope when your own body can't do what millions of others can? The number of parents in the world is a whole lot greater than the number of NBA superstars.

Now this doesn't directly apply to a 67 year old giving birth, but are all medical-based conceptions bad because a few people take it to the extreme? How old is too old and who gets to judge?

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:02pm

Disregard because it's apparently useless. My B.


Okay to be honest I stopped reading the thread a couple posts in, but being one of the "coveted white babies" that was adopted I felt like I should speak up. If a couple wants to have a child, great. If they are unable to physically then I think adoption is a good choice. Adoption gives babies the chance to have a life better than they may have ended up with. If someone is not capable of having a child why not adopt (okay money is an answer to the why not). I am grateful everyday that my parents adopted me, but I also think about my birth parents and pray that they are in an okay situation. I don't know much about this procedure, but IMO I think adoption is a wonderful alternative if you are unable to conceive. I guess my thought is that I wouldn't be sitting here typing this if my parents hadn't adopted me.

I don't know if that is relevant or makes sense, but it's my two cents.
Updated On: 1/2/07 at 04:02 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:45pm

i haven't bothered to read any of this thread because i can't be bothered to waste my precious time trying to understand what you people are talking about when all i really want to do is tell you what i think (which is after all, much more important than what any of you have written, even though i haven't read any of it): you're all going to hell!

[blueroses]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:49pm

lol papa.

shootin, not one person has degraded adoption. Adoption is wonderful.

"I guess my thought is that I wouldn't be sitting here typing this if my parents hadn't adopted me." I don't see what that has to do with this discussion. Also, your being alive has nothing to do with whether or not your parents adopted you. You probably wouldn't have grown into the same person had they not raised you, you wouldn't be sitting in the same room at the same computer, but you'd still have been BORN. I still don't see your point. The benefits of fertility treatments in no way cancel out the merits of adoption.
Updated On: 1/2/07 at 04:49 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:52pm

blue, how dare you denigrate what might be the most important post in this thread by pointing out facts that the poster could have discovered on her own by bothering to read the f*cking thread! i will not stand for that, lady!

you're lucky i'm sitting, but i've got my eye on you, sister.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:54pm

What we need is for Manoel Felici-whatever-his-name is to pop onto the thread and announce he wouldn't be here if it weren't for IVF.

There'd be no more arguing then, would there!

[blueroses]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 4:56pm

Rath, you're such a fangirl!

[Liverpool]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 5:14pm

Procreating should be a privilage.

[avab802]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 5:29pm

ITA with Liverpool. You need a license to drive a car, catch a fish, etc etc, but they will let any a**hole become a parent.

(For the record, neither of my parents are a**holes. Just saying, before anyone calls me a bitter person who hates my parents.)

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 7:10pm

I think one of the dynamics involved is there is a mystique to being pregnant. One need only to look around to see pictures of new mothers and their babies. One can invariably imagine the halo floating overhead. I think that a lot of women who have difficulty conceiving feel that they will be cheated out of that remarkable experience by adopting. I don't want to minimize those feelings because it giving birth is a pretty profound experience.

The thing I wish more people realized, is that once you get past that one year investment...pregnancy and the newborn... as that infant starts to grow and become a little person, a separate entity, the pregnancy and birth experience becomes an abstract memory. It's the intimate involvement in a child's life, having them look to you for all their needs, and trusting you to do so that makes a parent/child bond. I've always believed that it wouldn't have mattered to me, after the fact, if I had actually given birth to my kids or adopted them. I doubt the relationships would have been any different.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 7:23pm

Boy, this thread isn't about what I thought it would be about. I thought we were going to talk about something like China's one-child law, which makes more sense considering the title.

But as long as we're talking about the fertility industry- and it is an industry- I'm creeped the hell out by it. The choosing of sperm donors, even the fact that people get paid to donate sperm and ova, goes into commodification of life territory, and that's territory I don't think we should ever touch.

So as bizarre as it sounds, I'm against paid sperm and ova donations, because once you're paid it's not a donation anymore- you're selling life, and that shouldn't be allowed. And in this post-Marx age, we should know damn well that commodification makes a difference. That's why we refuse to advocate paid organ donations- people do not own their bodies in the sense that they can commodify them. Life isn't a product commensurable with anything else. Freedom doesn't go that far. (Actually, the conception of freedom underlying that last sentence isn't even one I agree with, but I won't go into that.)

If friends agree to help each other with fertility- as donors, surrogate mothers, or whatever- it's fine. Family is a more complex thing than who you go to bed with. Donating sperm anonymously out of the kindness of your heart might be okay. But people going through donor catalogues to choose the perfect blonde-haired blue-eyed successful doctor to father their baby? Is just wrong.

Posted: 1/2/07 at 7:35pm

A) Never did I say that my post was more important than anyone else's. Unless you can find where I said it and quote it in which case, I'm clearly an idiot.

B) I realize that I should have read the whole thread before typing that. Oops.

C) I never said that adoption was better than IVF, I just said that is was a wonderful alternative if one is not able to conceive.

D) I know no one here has degraded adoption. Just like it wasn't my intention to degrade IVF- if you really want to give birth to a child by all means go for it.

And btw blueroses, I agree with you on not seeing my point with that sentence. I just don't know why you thought I was dissing IVF by saying that. Tone is really hard to convey over the internet.

That being said, bring on the bashing!
Updated On: 1/2/07 at 07:35 PM

[The Grovers Corners Yenta]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 8:14pm

I have never been blessed with having my own children naturally. However, I have been truly blessed with all the children that are apart of my life. The money that is spent on things such as invitro, etc could be better spent on adoption. Heck, it could be better spent on finding a cure for cancer. The emotional bond one has with a child far outweighs physically giving birth.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 1/2/07 at 9:33pm

I see the resistance to IVF, but what about fertility drugs? It's very difficult for me to determine exactly how much science should be allowed to interfere with things like childbearing. While I do think that IVF is certainly a ridiculous expense and I would never do it myself, there are years and years of pressure put on women to have children throughout basically all of history (being barren used to carry a huge stigma, and probably still does at least in certain communities), and it's hard to deny the immense peer pressure involved in having children...and how many mothers have you heard talk about what an amazing and life changing experience being pregnant was? I just can't whole heartedly villify desiring couples.