How old is too old to be a parent?

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  • A COUPLE have become Britain’s oldest new parents — only to have their baby taken from them by social services.

    The 63-year-old mum and her partner, 65, are “devastated” after bosses stepped in and took the child from them.

    As this article goes on to say, the couple used a surrogate mother in her thirties with donated sperm from the elderly man. The article doesn't state why the child was removed, but age was a factor. Clearly, both parents were unable to look after the child.

    Time and time again, science has pushed back the "rules" of nature on things such as treatment of disease, but if someone cannot naturally give birth to a child in their sixties, should they be allowed to go down the IVF route? By the time the child reaches adulthood, both parents if they are still alive by then, will be in their eighties.

    Should there be a cap on how old someone can be to be a parent, or it that far too arbitrary with continual advances in medicine meaning elderly people are living longer and healthier lives than ever before?

  • The parents should not be the priority. The priority should be the child. It is likely that one, or both parents will die before the child reaches 21. Losing a parent at any age is devastating, but the later, the better. Accidents and illness are bad enough, but potentially having to care for two elderly parents while still at school is not the best start for any child.

    I think there should be an age limit, using nature as a guide, even where one parent is much younger than the other. We should be doing all we can to reduce the human population, not increase it.

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

  • I'm not sure I agree with that last comment, but otherwise yes. Accidents and illness will all increase as we get older, but unless laws are put in place, how can we prevent someone elderly getting IVF or going down the adoption route?

    These parents paid for the IVF themselves, so it's not as if this could've been stopped with the excuse of pressures on NHS budgets, because they didn't use the NHS.

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