Never Too Old - World

April 2005
Advances in IVF, aided by a sinister international trade in human eggs, have enabled women in their sixties to become mothers. But how old is too old to have a baby?

Adriana Iliescu hugs her baby tightly and covers her with kisses. At the age of 66, she's just become a mother for the first time. "My life has been made complete. The emptiness I felt in my life has been filled," she raves. But many people are less delighted she's a mother. "I think there's a sense of ridiculousness about a woman of that age imagining that she fulfils the model of motherhood," states bioethics campaigner Josephine Quintavalle. Adriana's pregnancy would not have been possible without another woman's donated eggs. And that's led to a sinister new trade, where teenagers from impoverished countries like Romania are lured into selling their eggs. Nineteen year old Alina Nodoku was one such donor. But the procedure went horribly wrong and she ended up being rushed to hospital. "I was feeling very bad. I was dizzy, I was vomiting," she recalls. Now she fears she may not be able to have children of her own. "Egg donation is not an easy process. In a sense, it makes the ovaries explode," explains Josephine Quintavalle. "I don't think we have any right to expose any woman to these risks in order to provide somebody of 67 with a child."