Letters to the Editor
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I'd also like to add that
I remember reading several times statistics that state that men are more susceptible to chronic illness in their later years than women and even with diseases that are more common in women, men DIE from it more. I've also read that their life expectancy is shorter. Carol, you raise a good point about this cultural mindset under-valuing fatherhood. For older men to possibly die while their kids are young only to leave the child to a young, robust mom is most certainly a double-standard. What if an older woman marries a younger man, has a healthy child and then dies when the child is young? If it can be accepted that older men can marry young women and have kids because when the die the young chick can take care of the kid then it is only fair that opposite be accepted as well.
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Strom Thurmond's daughter--no not THAT one
Did some young person mention "I could be hit by a bus?" Why, I believe they did.
Strom Thurmond married a 22-year-old in 1968, when he was 66. They had a baby, also named Nancy, in 1971. In 1993, that daughter, herself 22, was run over by a drunk driver. Strom lived 10 more years.
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connections
the argument that an older mother should not have a child because death is more immanent should be brought into the perspective of a previous article on broadsheet. in the post titled "Dead man's sperm" (http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/01/30/sperm/index.html) a court is allowing a man who is dead to "impregnate" a woman. therefore the (real) father would NEVER be able to care for or know his child. it seems that this ruling should be considered when thinking about the right of a woman (who is very much alive) to have a child at any age she pleases.
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I cannot believe
That someone actually used the bible as a legitimate source of scientific data. I've heard of obscure sources for scientific date before but this is just ridiculous.
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Tony Randall left his children a younger wife with millions
Something that elderly pregnant women do not leave their children. As for your snipping fantasies, lady, go see a psychiatrist!
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Re: "Irresponsible behavior?"
You can recoginze that a fetus will most likely obtain personhood one day without saying that the fetus has personhood. This is a big distinction. It means that I can believe abortion is justified and not cruel in part because the fetus is not a person, but I also realize that if the mother does something to harm the fetus (like drinking or doing drugs while pregnant), which becomes a baby, that she is not absolved because she abused a fetus and not a person.
Now, I am not trying to equate abusing drugs while pregnant and having a baby when you're at an elevated age, but we should realize that having a kid in your sixties (even with genetic testing) is risky for the baby.
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Genetic Testing In The Case of the Sixty Seven Year Old Mother is not relevant
The sixty-seven year-old mother used a young donor's eggs and a young donor's sperm.
It is old fathers who bring genetic damage to children. Paternal age is responsible for a great deal of schizophrenia and autism. The researchers in the field say an upswing in the numbers of both brain disorders is, and has been expected, because of increasing paternal age. The Spanish woman's children are not at risk of genetic diseases due to her age.
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There are so many variables
contributing to what makes a good parent, and so many things that can and do go wrong with having children, that it's kind of a wonder that it ever turns out right at all. I personally don't think that the elderly (70+) should be having children, but I don't make the rules, especially now, when the rules change all the time. I just read somewhere that they are starting to genetically test younger pregnant women for chromosomal defects because children with birth defects are being born to younger mothers because they don't as a rule genetically test them. Anyway, my cousin, a man, had a child late in life. This child has the double Y chromosome, but he is the light of my cousin's life and I'm glad he has him. So many things can go wrong. Yes, you can be hit by a bus or your children may be healthy and happy and hate your guts, or they could grow up to have a child with Strom Thurmond. Talk about yuck.
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Old Moms on Trial
My conceived and bore me naturally. She was 39 and my father was 46. When I was six years old, I became an aunt--a very jealous aunt. By the time I was 15, I was an orphan. Because of my background, I can vividly imagine how difficult it is to have parents the ages of grandparents who should be retired and on Social Security. The entire dynamic of parent and child changes, and, I hate to dare to say, that it is against the natural order of things and is a very selfish act.
True, it can be done, but who is it done for: the parent or the child?
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how old is too old??? How old were the fathers of the people who live on the streets and in the jails?
Undoubtably there are many very physically and mentally fit happy offspring of 40+ Parents, but these researchers and clinicians are aware of what else happens to children of older fathers.
THE PEOPLE QUOTED BELOW HAVE FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE WITH WHAT CAN HAPPEN TO THE OFFSPRING OF OLDER FATHERS:
A link between older age of fatherhood and an increased risk of schizophrenia was detected in 1958. Since then, 10 studies attempted to replicate this result with different methods, on samples with different origins, using different age classes. Defining a cut-off at which the risk is significantly increased in the offspring could have an important impact on public health. Philip Gorwood M.D.
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The most irrefutable finding is our demonstration that a father’s age is a major risk factor for schizophrenia. We were the first group to show that schizophrenia is linearly related to paternal age and that the risk is tripled for the offspring of the oldest groups of fathers. This finding has been born out in every single cohort study that has looked at paternal age and the risk for schizophrenia.
The actual percentage of cases with paternal germ line-derived schizophrenia in a given population will depend on the demographics of paternal childbearing age, among other factors. With an upswing in paternal age, these cases would be expected to become more prevalent.
Older paternal age was exclusively associated with a decrement in nonverbal (performance) intelligence IQ, without effects on verbal ability, suggestive of a specific effect on cognitive processing. Dolores Malaspina, M.D.
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Should Older Men Stop Fathering Babies?
Until recently, health care professionals have focused almost exclusively on the mother's age as a risk factor for health problems in the child. But we now know that the father's age also adds to the risk of potentially devastating diseases. And there is no practical way to detect these illnesses during pregnancy. For those weighing the risks, the decision can be wrenching. Adoption and in some instances a sperm donation may be acceptable alternatives to older fathers wanting to build a healthy family.
Michael Craig Miller, M.D
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Conclusions: The age of the father is an important determinant of the health of future generations. Children conceived by fathers older than 36 years of age are at increased risk for
genetic illness due to recent mutation in the male germ cell.
The genetic illness of a child could originate in a mutation related to the age of the father or to a mutation in the spermatogenesis caused by ageing in previous generations. The ageing process in the male is an important, probably the most important, cause of genetic illness in human populations. Leslie B.Raschka, M.D.
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I conclude that for a number of diseases the mutation rate increases with age and at a rate much faster than linear. This suggests that the greatest mutational health hazard in the human population at present is fertile old males. If males reproduced shortly after puberty (or the equivalent result were attained by early collection of sperm and cold storage for later use) the mutation rate could be greatly reduced. (I am not advocating this. For one thing, until many more diseases are studied, the generality of the conclusion is not established. Furthermore, one does not lightly suggest such socially disruptive procedures, even if there were a well-established health benefit.) James F.Crow, Ph.D.