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Nowadays medicine offers numerous opportunities to conquer problems of people who are handicapped in various ways. The wonders of this science are amazing and thanks to them more and more doors open. They open also for those whom nature bereft of the possibility of having children. Reproductive technology and particularly in vitro fertilization has changed their situation. But behind the scientific advances lags ethics with a question: how far should we push mother nature?
Fertility clinics help sterile couples fulfil their dream to have a child. They may choose a donor of sperm or an egg to be either a member of their family, or a friend, or an unknown person from a catalogue. Such catalogues are issued by sperm banks. They specify height, hair colour, eye colour, religious and educational backgrounds, even IQ. It seems to be fair, as donors and recipients should be matched as closely as possible. But it would mean that we have entered the era of ' designer babies', where future parents ' order ' a child with certain features. Sometimes it occurs to be controversial when, for example, a black mother (using donor eggs) gives birth to a white child. Then, perhaps it should be regulated that the race of parents and their child should be the same. But what about age restrictions? Is there any upper limit on the age at which women can bear children? Many women in their forties or fifties delayed marriage and childbearing to pursue careers, only to discover how difficult it was to conceive. Seeing a chance of experiencing motherhood thanks to artificial insemination they resorted to it .
Whether it is safe for older women to bear children is a matter of argument. Some experts claim that the average physical state of an older woman requires an unordinate vigilance to ensure that she can carry her baby to term. They also argue that such children risk having weaker immune systems. However, there are also authorities on gynaecology who do not find evidence that children born to postmenopausal women are subject to any higher risks. They are not abnormal or pathological. It is true that older mothers face grater risks to their own health than young ones but most in vitro fertilization programmes screen out candidates with heart conditions, hypertension, etc. Besides if there were the age limit applied on motherhood, perhaps women who have cancer, or AIDS, or who smoke, or drink heavily also should be forbidden to have children. Most doctors are concerned that older mothers will not have the energy to cope with bringing up a child. But aren't there thousands of grandmothers who raise energetically their grandchildren? Besides, couples with financial means to pursue in vitro fertilization can probably afford a nanny and give more security to their baby than teenage parents who are not prepared emotionally to have a child .
Each country regulates individually the question of in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, experimentation on human embryo, etc. Governments enact laws which implement limits and restrictions specifying whether older women, unmarried couples, or single women can have children by means of new reproductive technologies. But are these laws strong enough to confront a powerful law of nature - the woman's desire to give birth to her baby?
