Is it really never too late to have a new baby?

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D. • E-mail

Aleta St. James is the latest celebrity to enter the "Are you ever too old to have a baby?" sweepstakes. St. James is a singer and self-described "healer" with lots of Hollywood clients. She is also the sister of Curtis Sliwa, the New York radio personality who founded the crime-fighting group the Guardian Angels.

Tuesday morning, three days shy of her 57th birthday, she gave birth to twins — a boy and a girl — at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. The babies were delivered by Caesarean section. Born three weeks premature, they were taken to the neonatal nursery where both were reported to be doing well.

St. James is not married. She used an egg made available by a stranger and sperm reportedly donated by a former boyfriend to achieve the pregnancy. In response to media questions about why she had decided to have children at age 57 she responded, "It is never too late. You are never too old. It is just in your mind." 

The doctors to whom she paid more than $25,000 for the treatments that resulted in her pregnancy apparently did not think she was too old. And her family, as well as a gaggle of reporters, deemed her upbeat answer (in addition to her healing work, St. James is a motivational speaker) a more-than-sufficient response. Her father, who is well into his '80s, said that he now has two big reasons to want to keep on living.

What it means to be an older parent
But is it really the case that it's never too late and that you are never too old to parent?

It is hard to even raise this question without seeming like a moral busybody. What right does anyone have to challenge the reproductive decisions of another person? But, that line of argument is simply wrong-headed. If decisions as important as when to have children are not open to ethical comment and discussion, then what is worthy of ethical analysis — decisions about what color to paint the living room?

I have a lot of doubts about St. James’ decision. I also have a lot of doubts about the wisdom of the doctors who decided to help a 57-year-old woman have twins.

Let's think for a minute about what it means to have twins at 57. What it means is that when your twins are about to enter high school, say at the age of 14, you are 71. Now I know that there are many grandparents who have successfully raised kids when the children's own parents could not. But it is one thing for two older people to deal with a difficult situation and make the best of it. It is quite different to deliberately create a situation where a single, 71-year-old parent who has been eligible for Medicare for seven years must deal with twins entering both puberty and high school.

If you talk to children of older parents, most will tell you that they worried quite a bit about whether their parents would live to see them graduate from high school. Others will tell you that as much as they loved their parents they missed having someone who could do all the physically demanding things that younger parents can do. Putting aside the proven risks to babies and mothers when women over 40 attempt childbirth, is it really all that nuts to suggest that 57 is just too old to start raising two children by yourself?

The doctors who agreed to help St. James become pregnant dismissed such worries about her age. They said no one complains when an older man, say a Tony Randall or a Clint Eastwood or a Strom Thurmond, has a baby. Notice, however, that two of these men have died since creating a baby very late in life. Is that good for the child?

MORE FROM BREAKING BIOETHICS

Breaking Bioethics Section Front

New IVF dilemmas make old fears seem quaint Opinion: Medical road trips not worth the cost Opinion: Save your hide — skip the tanning bed Opinion: 'Blade Runner' ruling subverts nature of sport Opinion: Intelligent design film worse than stupid Opinion: Children's health can't be left to faith alone Opinion: Transplant list numbers raise doubts Opinion: Don't ask, don't tell? The dish on clones 2008: A year already worth forgetting DNA pioneer's genes reveal ironic twist Breaking Bioethics Section Front   Add Breaking Bioethics headlines to your news reader: