Letters to the Editor
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Regarding chromosomal defects in older mothers.
I had difficulty staying pregnant, and so I was an over 35 mother for two of my three kids; as such I took the responsibility to have both tested via chorionic villi sampling (CVS) at about 9-11 weeks for chromosomal defects. You don't have to wait until the second trimester to test. I was fortunate that both were healthy babies; but I figured if it had been necessary, a first trimester abortion would have been much easier mentally and physically than a later one.
The genetic counsellor also told me that the risk of other genetic birth defects doesn't significantly rise with age. Other risks such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia do rise of course.
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prochoice is about life
There is no more of a prochoice stand than to value a child's life so much as to only become a parent when you are ready and want to be a parent.
I have women in my family get pregnant naturally in their late forties. All of them were "oops" babies because they believed the propoganda that women in their forties never get pregnant. Yes, it can happen naturally. But if you want to be a parent and need help, go for it. Biology is not unchangable destiny and every time you go and get your teeth fixed to chew beyond the capabilities of the age and wear of your teeth or get a shot of antibiotics, laser eye surgery, or are smart enough to put on a coat before going out into the rain you ought to think about that. You take what you were given and work with it, sometimes with help.
Family planning is part of the pro-choice freedom. Is it so radical an idea that people should be allowed to plan their families? Is it so radical that a woman should have the right to decide whether or not her body will be pregnant? I think it's frightening to people.
Contrary to what most people think, not everyone wants children. There is nothing wrong with them. They are natural and frankly, the world would be a better place if all children had parents that could look at them and say "you were wanted, planned for, and I deliberately wanted to be your parent." Other people, want to plan their families. There is nothing wrong with them.
I think the hatred of planned parenthood by some religious folks is kind of like wanting to enforce to all mutual assured misery and keeping women hostage to the punishment for either having too much sex while they are young without the payment of pregnancy, and the desire to punish women having children late in life, which goes against the grain of every blockhead who enjoys stating the dire consequences of rejecting men in their twenties and mocking older women who now want to settle down. It's like payback for all the times they were denied.
Planned parenthood is the most sensible and respectful thing, and the most reverent in my mind. Playing roulette with sex and having gambling babies is not being an instrument of God's will. You don't have a less holy pregnancy because you planned it. That's nearly like having snake handling beliefs, where people deny the sense God gave them to tempt the snake to bite them. God gives us good sense to not eat after someone with TB (even holy people get sick), to not take on more debt than we can manage, to not gamble, to not drink and drive, to plan for our housing and food, and all manner of living. You don't play in traffic thinking that if you get hit it's God's will. Parenthood is a greater thing than all the things I previously mentioned. Planning means you honor the life of a child and don't toy with the idea of parenthood.
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Response to Sooty and the other person
Sooty said in response to my page 1 comment
"Not so. First, given American consumption, 3 children here equal the environmental impact of about 400 kids in a third-world country."
I'm raising my kids to share my low impact lifestyle, and working hard to live a very different life than most SUV driving 'Mericans. My children will make their own choices, but the idea that someone should not come into existence because they MIGHT make bad choices seems flawed to me.
"The "average number" is not trending down in the US;"
Yes they are... only immigration keeps us growing.
".... birth rates themselves don't factor in lifespan of those born or how immigrant resource usage skyrockets in the US compared with usage in their home countries."
How is that relevant to the morality of producing a child to, essentially, replace oneself?
"Also, you are assuming that the current population is within Earth's carrying capacity--not so."
True enough, but the North American continent is much closer to its carrying capacity than the Indian subcontinent. Come peak oil and its aftermath you are quite correct that we will discover that we are in overshoot. A horrible scramble for life may ensue. I see no reason that I or my offspring shouldn't have a shot at making it through the population bottleneck.
"We are already in population overshoot, destroying habitat and the other creatures on which we depend for every aspect of our lives (everything from plankton to trees); we're destroying our water and air, and meanwhile, soil fertility and harvests have declined annually for the past 5 years."
All true, but none of that an argument against propagating another member of my species who will succeed me when I die. I'm already doing more than 99% of Americans to reduce my carbon output and resource use, and I'm educating my children to share my values... maybe they will and maybe they won't. I see no moral superiority in the choice not to "reproduce" myself... I am both a set of values and norms that the world needs and a biological organism that the world needs. As a person of value I wish to create a limited number of other little people (2 to be precise) who will carry on the value set that I represent, and perhaps propagate it a little further in the next generation. My children are a potential gift to the world, not a burden on it. You are most welcome! No really. You are.
I don't understand people who define their lives in terms of their own personal birth and death. I'm a long term biological product channeling genes from ancestors in the past into the future. That multi-generational animal/creature is me, and there is no reason that my branch should stop living. It doesn't have to grow larger. It does have to behave responsibly. But it has no obligation to stop with me. I am my parents, just as my children are me and my spouse. We are all part of the weave of our part of humanity. To not have children would be a partial death. Some people face that death and fight it, some people accept it with joy, and many are blessed like me to have found life through their own few children, who are biological and/or cultural carriers of part of what they are, and what their ancestors were.
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To the other person who thought early child bearing and parenting is a mistake, please note that your objection seems to be based on the idea that young people lack the needed resources. I agree that absent those resources it can be a mistake... although even then not always. More importantly, I think that parents should support adult children financially in early parenting... in the interests of their children and grandchildren. This whole capitalist cultural idea that you have to be wholly self supporting before you start making babies is absurd. I hope my children have children earlier in life, and I plan to put my money where my values are in enabling that to happen to the extent that I can help.