CIENCIASMEDICASNEWS: BioEdge: Australian doctors dispute IVF regulations after 63-year-old gives birth

lunes, 8 de agosto de 2016

BioEdge: Australian doctors dispute IVF regulations after 63-year-old gives birth

BioEdge: Australian doctors dispute IVF regulations after 63-year-old gives birth

Bioedge

Australian doctors dispute IVF regulations after 63-year-old gives birth

by Michael Cook | 6 Aug 2016 | 1 comment

The parents of the baby girl

The birth of an IVF daughter to a 63-year-old Tasmanian woman in Melbourne has exposed a rift in the medical profession about post-menopausal pregnancies. The unnamed woman probably went to an overseas clinic to become pregnant. Her partner is reportedly 78. She is the oldest Australian to have given birth.

The president of the Australian Medical Association, an obstetrician, Dr Michael Gannon, was scathing on Twitter and called for “the mother of all debates” about the issue:

Dr Gannon claimed that giving birth at an advanced age was wrong from many angles:

“As a community, we need to consider the rights of the child, the rights of society, the responsibilities of proper parenting, the health of the parents, the health risks to the child at birth and beyond, and the costs to the health system and the taxpayers that fund it. This must not be narrowly viewed as a women’s rights issue. Nor is it about ageism.”

The birth of a child to a 63-year-old mother was not what the pioneers of IVF had in mind in the late 1970s, he said. “Just because medical science can do something does not mean we have to do it, or should do it.”

However, the president of the Fertility Society of Australia, Prof Michael Chapman, said that no one should judge the woman.

I think we’re all selfish in having babies and one of the main motives of having them is self-fulfilment and selfishness, so I don’t criticise her at all for that. There is also a lot we don’t know about her. Maybe she comes from a wealthy family, maybe there are other family members able to step in and help to look after the child. I can see many situations that might have driven her to this.”

Dr Andrew Pesce, a former AMA president and obstetrician and gynaecologist, called for an official age limit on pregnancies. "It helps in your counselling of people who are very desperate, who are very vulnerable, who may insist on saying, 'I know you're telling me I have no realistic chance of getting pregnant ... but I still want to do it,'" he told the ABC. "It would help clinicians to say 'I'm sorry even though I feel very sorry for you ... I can't because I'm not allowed to'. And I think that would be a good thing."

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/doctors-dispute-ivf-birth-to-63-year-old-woman/11942#sthash.OxXdBfxh.dpuf

Bioedge

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad have just started in Rio de Janeiro. A few thousand young men and women will be sweating in their competitions; a few billion people will be watching them on television screens; and a few bioethicists will be disputing the merits of taking drugs and human enhancement. Stretching the body to its limits, going "Faster, Higher, Stronger", is a thrilling spectacle. But -- this is just a personal crochet -- I've always sought out the human drama in the Olympics, which sometimes has nothing to do with record books.

My favourite Olympic moment comes from the marathon at the 1968 Games in Mexico. John Stephen Akhwari, of Tanzania, began to cramp up because of the high altitude conditions. And then at the 19 kilometre mark, he fell and badly injured his knee and shoulder. But on he ran, or stumbled, and as dusk was falling, he hobbled into the nearly empty stadium, a bandage flapping around his leg, and crossed the finish line an hour after the winner. When they asked him why he bothered, he replied, "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race."

You can enhance stamina and speed, but can you enhance courage and loyalty?

Have you any favourite Olympic stories?