Not alone again (unnaturally)

On the theme of our recent analysis of bitter cat ladies, the legacy press (c) website, The Sydney Morning Herald, ran an article about the final option available to those who find themselves single, childless and on the wrong side of the fertility timetable.

The answer?

Go to South Africa, buy fertilised eggs and have IVF.

Ok, that’s great that we’ve developed modern medical knowledge to the point where it is possible and even affordable, but, to misquote Lemmy, “just ‘cos you’ve got the power, does it mean you have the right?”

It’s worth looking at the “balance sheet” of our protagonist, Manda Epton;

Debits

Manda is 50 years old. It’s highly unlikely her own eggs are viable.

Manda is single and has failed to make a success of any of her long term relationships. The men she met in her 30s “already had families”, which infers they didn’t want to have more children with her (or that was a convenient excuse to end the relationship with her).

Being single is going to make raising twins highly-challenging. Even with logistical support, such as a nanny, there will be gaps in the parenting of those children that she will be unable to fill on her own.

Manda is now a single mother of twins. It’s highly unlikely she’ll find a suitable partner willing to join that family unit in the next couple of decades.

Credit

Manda’s womb is still viable.

Manda has plenty of money.

Erm, that’s it.

Bill’s Opinion

It’s medically possible to put one’s finger on the scales of nature to increase the number of fertile years and enable single women to bear children.

Just because we can, however, doesn’t necessarily mean we ought.

I wish Manda and her daughters all the best in their futures but let’s not kid ourselves that this is an ideal family unit.

There’s a couple of fairly straightforward reasons Manda has had to go down this expensive and sub-optimal route to motherhood.

1. She left it far too late.

2. She didn’t invest enough time and energy into selecting an appropriate partner.

The consequence of these life mistakes is single parenthood, at late middle age, of other people’s children (the sperm and eggs were donated/bought).

She could, of course, chosen to have adopted children to have achieved a similar outcome with the added benefit of lifting two orphans out of institutional care in a third world country.

But, ultimately, Manda’s own words explain why she took this option, albeit in a form of cognitive dissonance;

Quite.