Nature

A 66-year-old woman is going to have a baby next month. She underwent IVF in order to have a child. The newspapers are full of comments on it. Inevitably, people start discussing the ethical arguments around IVF and saying that it's wrong and one shouldn't mess with nature. I take these comments quite personally.

While I'm not advocating IVF for a single business woman who never got around to having children while she was still of child-bearing age, I have to respect her right to use the money she has earned in whatever way she sees fit. If her body has let her get pregnant, it can't be that much against nature surely? Yes, she might die when she's 80, leaving the child without a parent, but so might any single parent die when their child is young.

Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive, but it really irks me to read a comment saying 'some women are barren and some men are infertile and they should accept that. It's nature's way of controlling the population'. What an ignorant attitude! If 'nature' was so clever, perhaps it would have found a way of making just the stupid people infertile or the ones without jobs who put a strain on the economy? Who is to say that it isn't part of nature's plan that we have clever doctors who can overcome infertility?

I resent being told that just because I fell in love with a man who happens to have fewer sperm than average, I'm not entitled to have children with him. We are good people, good parents, we're intelligent and have a good work ethic so overall contribute positively to society. Why should we be punished due to a freak of, well, nature?

Rant over.