I found this old post in my “Draft” folder, it’s a few months old but I never got around to publishing it, so…

Nigerian mother Margaret Adenuga and her husband Noah with their twins, a boy and a girl on April 19, 2020 at the maternity ward of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria.

A Nigerian woman has given birth to twins, a boy, and a girl at the age of 68. Margaret Adenuga went through three previous IVF procedures before finally having twins. Her husband Noah Adenuga, 77 told CNN the couple, who married in 1974 had long desired to have a child of their own. Adenuga said they never gave up even after the failed attempts.

The retired stock auditor told CNN, “I am a dreamer, and I was convinced this particular dream of ours will come to pass.”
The babies were delivered via caesarian section at 37 weeks last Tuesday at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) but the hospital only recently made the news public to give the first-time mother time to recuperate, it said. Dr. Adeyemi Okunowo, who delivered the babies, told CNN a specialist team was assembled at the hospital to monitor the pregnancy because of her age.“As an elderly woman and a first-time mother, it was a high-risk pregnancy and also because she was going to have twins but we were able to manage her pregnancy to term,” Okunowo told CNN.
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Here we go again. First, let me just say that upon rereading this article again, the possibility struck me that this very well could be a hoax. I mean, sure, I’d like to think the CNN carefully vetted this story before publishing the article, but this is from Nigeria, anything could have happened. Unless Bukola Adebayo, the reporter, was actually in the delivery room and saw this woman give birth, they don’t know for sure. And while I know that medical science has enabled women at older and older ages, this seemed to be pushing it, so color me suspicious.

But let’s set that aside and assume for the sake of this discussion that this story is true, 100% factual. Okay, then how effed up is this? Yes, anyone who knows me well is aware of my lack of interest in having children, I’ve made that abundantly clear on this blog many times. I just don’t have that paternal instinct, yet I do realize that many, if not most people, do. People want to have children, I get it, but damn. As I’ve also, people accuse child-free people like myself of being selfish, which I freely admit is part of my motivation, but sometimes those of you who want children as just as selfish.

Seriously, some people’s desire to have their own biological children is very self-centered, it’s more about them and what they want than about being a parent and raising a decent human being in a loving household. Unfortunately, life or biology happens, and not everyone is capable of having biological children. Many men have love sperm counts and can’t impregnate a woman, and many women can’t get pregnant or can’t carry a baby to term, for a variety of reasons. And for those that really want children but find themselves in that position, believe me, I am sympathetic. It sucks, it really does. But I feel like when that happens, you should accept it, and if raising children as a goal is that important, take the steps to adopt. You shouldn’t have to be biologically related to a child to love it as your own. I certainly love several “family members” that I’m not biologically related to.

But instead, people go through all sorts of complicated medical procedures including saving embryos to be implanted in surrogate mothers just to have a biological child, and I think some of this just going too far, and just because medical science had advanced far enough that it can do certain things, I don’t know if our moral consciousnesses have advanced enough that we should allow it. Like take this couple in the above article, it says the woman got pregnant after four IVF attempts.

WHY WOULD ANY SANE, ETHICAL DOCTOR AGREE TO THIS?!?

If I were a doctor, and a 68 year old woman came to be, with her 77 year old husband, asking for IVF treatments to try to pregnant, I would say NO! Sorry, you’re too old, if we were to succeed this would not be the best environment for a child! And then I’d recommend them to a psychiatrist, because if this is really something they’ve been hoping for since they married in 1974 then they both have major issues to work out. I honestly feel like that doctor should get his license revoked, as I think what he did was unethical. I think he was more interested in proving that he could do this, rather than on whether he should. I don’t care if it was legal, I think it was morally wrong.

It’s like, I’m all for elective plastic surgery, if you want to improve your physical looks in some way, that’s up to you. But I think there should be certain limits. Like say if you’re a woman and you want larger breasts, whether it’s because you’re really flat and just want something or you’re already decently-sized but want them bigger for cosmetic reasons, that’s your business. But whatever doctor did this:

Should have refused this woman’s request. That is not in the best interests of your patient. I consider that morally wrong, as well.

Well, I just hope that Margaret and Noah Adenuga and have some help raising their twins, including already picked out whom they want to raise the children after them.