Should women too old to donate eggs get fertility drugs to conceive?

Yes

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by Scott Ickes

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Why would a woman be denied assistance in conceiving a child because she is too old to donate eggs? The topic of this debate implies there is a correlation between the ability to donate eggs and the appropriate age to conceive children. Upon consideration, that is not likely the case. The age limits for egg donation are set so that the donated eggs are most likely to be viable, and so that complications for the donor are less likely. Complications become more likely with age, and the chance of conception goes down. In fact, it is partly because of this that the topic is raised in the first place. Older women are less likely to be able to conceive. Fertility drugs increase the chance of conception.

In order to be prescribed fertility drugs, a woman would most likely be under the care of a physician that specializes in fertility. Her physician should discuss the possibility of complications and birth defects, and make sure she is healthy enough to be able to bear a child. The fact that the woman has gone to the effort of consulting such a specialist indicates that she wants to conceive a child and has most likely spent some time and effort attempting to achieve that. If older women are more likely to need help in conceiving a child, that only reinforces the reason for the age limit in donating eggs.

The viability of donated eggs has nothing to do with the ability of a woman to bear a child if she conceives, and even less (than nothing) to do with her ability to care for a child. Consulting a fertility expert indicates a conscious and planned decision to have a child. If only more children could be so lucky as to be so wanted! A woman who goes to such trouble to conceive a child would be more likely to have also planned ahead to be able to raise the child in a good environment. Any competent physician would have also ensured that this is the case.

There is currently still an age limit on conception. No fertility specialist can cause a woman to conceive a child after menopause. To pick an arbitrary number of years as a limit to conception instead of the naturally-imposed limit of menopause is unfair. Many women live several decades past menopause. How many people born to women in the latter part of their fertile years would prefer not to be born? Why should women who have not had children or who would like to have another child be prevented from doing so based on an arbitrary limit? Who can claim to have the right to set that kind of limit for everyone, without taking anything other than the number of years since the woman's birth into account?

There are many variables in the conception of a child. So many that it is not possible to make such simple rules and make them fair in any way. It is better to trust the decisions to the people involved than to make the choice a simple pass/fail based on arbitrary criteria, because it is more likely that the right decisions will be made more often when the woman, her physician, and her family are given the opportunity to work together to make those decisions.

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