Old Enough to Be Your Mother

By MARGARET CARLSON

On Christmas Day, a 59-year-old British woman gave birth, making her the world's oldest known mother of twins. Two days later in Italy, an even older woman, Rossana Dalla Corte, 63, announced that she too would give birth to a ) baby in June. Both women had pursued their pregnancies for the most tender of reasons. Dalla Corte and her 65-year-old husband lost their only child, then 18, in a motorcycle accident three years ago. Jennifer F., as the British press dubbed her, a successful businesswoman and a millionaire, decided belatedly that she had missed the fulfillment of having a child. By slipping the physical coils of menopause, these women have inspired not just wonder but an intense debate over the question of when a woman is too old to become a mother.

Britain gave its answer in the case of Jennifer F., denying her fertility treatments on the basis of age. She went to Italy, where gynecologist Dr. Severino Antinori says he has helped 47 women over the age of 50 give birth at his Rome clinic. In the U.S. most doctors and clinics have already answered the question by parceling out the limited space in in-vitro fertilization programs to women under 45 on the grounds that younger women are more likely to succeed in the program and would be less prone to complications.

Indeed, the health risks of being pregnant at 50 are greater than those at 30, but careful monitoring minimizes those risks. Older mothers using donated eggs give birth to babies that do just as well as those born to younger women, according to Dr. Mark Sauer, a fertility expert at the University of Southern California.

Those who oppose such treatment appear to have reasons other than medical for denying motherhood to older women. When doctors in London refused to treat Jennifer F., they told her that they believed she was too old to face the stress of being a mother. In defending the decision, the British Secretary of Health said, "There are deep ethical considerations, and the child's welfare must be considered. A child has a right to a suitable home."

Dr. Arthur Caplan of the University of Minnesota argues that children have a right to a mother who won't be heading to a nursing home just as they are heading for high school. But what about men on Metamucil and pacemakers who become fathers? Senator Strom Thurmond, who had four children in his 60s and 70s, and Charlie Chaplin, who was 73 when he fathered his last child, did not have to seek approval when they sired their offspring. By the thousands, men over 45 exercise their perpetual rights to fatherhood, marrying and remarrying, having first and second families, without challenge to their right to do so. When it is a man having the baby, few seem to question whether the stress will be too much for the old geezer. One could contend that the assertion that a child is worse off with a mother who may die before the child is grown than a father who might is an argument for more equal parenting.

Those who cheer for Jennifer F. point out that society is not always kind to women as they age. A young woman might be discriminated against; an older woman is often seen as irrelevant. Actresses have complained for years that their male counterparts don't run into the same career roadblocks they do once they reach 40, but the dilemma is more serious than whether Meryl Streep is in as much demand as Jack Nicholson. Lauren Hutton and stories about older women and younger men notwithstanding, the woman who can no longer give birth may sometimes feel as used up in modern America as she was in preindustrial times, when bearing children was a key to economic survival.

The capacity to bear a child is one of the most powerful forces shaping male-female relationships. Certainly the biggest difference between men and women in their late 30s is that women see a deadline for procreating creeping up and men don't. This difference affects the way women approach work -- their peak childbearing years usually coincide with their make-or-break career years -- as well as the dating game. Instead of looking at men casually, with that insouciance so valued by the Letterman generation, panicky women for whom the biological clock is tolling evaluate each prospect for his potential as a father. This one-sided pressure to mate alters the social firmament. The very act of needing to be married and to have a child before it is too late may keep a woman from reaching her goal; a woman for whom time is running out may send out the wrong signals.

One argument against older women having children is that both parents will be too old to do the job right or to see their kids grow up. But that presumes that older women will always marry men their age or older. Once it is more acceptable for women over 45 to have children, the pool of men open to them expands. Then younger men who want to start families may feel freer to fall in love with older women. For those couples, there indeed could be better living through chemistry.