Letters to the Editor
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From the perspective of such a child
Reading this touches on a personal nerve, precisely because of the fact that I had an older father. He was 55 when I was born, and subsequently died at the age of 74--a good run for any of us in the scheme of things, but hell on a nineteen year old to deal with--to say nothing of what my then-thirteen year old brother must have gone through.
I applaud Ms. Lloyd pointing out the contradiction in terms of societal acceptance faced by older men and women in child-bearing, but ultimately find myself questioning the underlying point. As other posters have noted, the difference here is one of procreation where medical intervention is necessary. I should hope to find people equally critical of older men turning to science to bring a new life into creation, but given the way biology works it's far more likely that they'll simply become fathers "the old fashioned way" which a society can (and should) do very little about.