TV Debate About What Age Women Should Stop Trying to Conceive

The other day, I had a moment to actually sit down, longer than five minutes, so I thought I'd stick the TV on for a bit, and ended up watching "The Alan Titchmarsh Show". The only reason I ended up watching this, was because of the promise of debate between two women arguing for and against an age limit on women becoming pregnant. 

So when the time came for the debate, I was interested in hearing what would be said. The two women arguing were Samantha Brick, who is currently undergoing IVF at the "ripe old age" of 42, and a young twenty-something who has already had her two-point four children. 

Samantha shared what she had experienced and how she'd ended up walking the road to IVF. She voiced many of the thoughts and longings women who struggle to conceive express. She gave lots of factual information, including the fact that many women haven't purposely left it late to conceive, it's just the direction life has taken for them. She also shared stories of what it takes to have a desire to be a mum, and yet have that desire unmet.

Then the floor was opened to her challenger. Her basis for condemning women over 35 from being a mother is because she was born to older parents, and had to grow up without grandparents. Seriously! She was more bothered about not having grandparents, than the fact that her parents had struggled to conceive her, and so she decided that any woman over 35 is being selfish by having a baby, because they would deprive their child of grandparents.

As the show is pre-recorded for the Friday afternoon show, there was no opportunity to have a viewers contribution to the debate, which is a huge shame. I would loved to have added my "two-pennies worth" into the mix!

The fact is that, sadly, none of us are guaranteed of long life... A young couple in their twenties could have lost both their parents, while a couple in their forties could still have both of theirs living and active. Age is not a determiner of whether grandparents are around or not. So to decide that women over 35 are more at risk of damaging their children because they won't have the opportunity to forge a relationship with grandparents, is a crazy way of judging the suitability of a couple to become parents. 

The most shocking thing, at the end of the debate the studio audience were asked to raise a coloured paddle to show which side they agreed with. Thinking that Samantha had been less subjective and more structured in her argument, I was convinced that she would win over the votes of the audience, who were mainly older women. But alas, I was wrong. The audience seemed to agree with the young woman and condemned women over 35 as being selfish for wanting to have a baby! It seems that all those grandmothers in the audience couldn't bear the idea of not being a grandparent - which I understand, to an extent.

But, I'm so relieved there is no law against Hubby and I trying for our Bubba. As if it wasn't hard enough knowing I am disappointing my parents, as well as Hubby, as well as myself in this struggling to conceive, there are people out there who are prepared to condemn my desires, and stick a nail in the lid of the coffin, to stop us from having a Bubba! Wow! Where's God's grace in all this!!