Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Semin Reprod Med. 2010 Jul;28(4):281-6. doi: 10.1055/s-0030-1255175. Epub 2010 Aug 3.
Older parenthood raises a variety of important factual and ethical questions. None of the questions have received sufficient attention despite the rapid expansion in the United States and other nations in the numbers of older parents. We do not know much about the safety, economic, and psychosocial impact of these emerging practices on children or parents. Nor have there been many analytical considerations of the ethical issues raised. We argue in this article that there are reasons for concern when older persons seek to utilize fertility treatments, including the safety of pregnancy for older women, risks posed to children delivered by older mothers, issues around what constitutes safe conditions for having a child relative to the age of parents, and the importance of guaranteeing that someone will serve in the parental role should an older parent or parents become disabled or die. To protect the best interest of children created by technology in new familial circumstances, internationally recognized and enforced standards for fertility clinics to follow ought to be enacted in making decisions about treating older parents seeking infertility services.
高龄生育引发了一系列重要的事实和伦理问题。尽管美国和其他国家的高龄父母人数迅速增加，但这些问题都没有得到足够的关注。我们对这些新兴做法对儿童或父母的安全性、经济性和社会心理影响知之甚少。也没有对所提出的伦理问题进行很多分析性考虑。我们在本文中认为，当老年人寻求利用生育治疗时，存在一些令人担忧的原因，包括高龄妇女怀孕的安全性、高龄母亲所生儿童面临的风险、相对于父母年龄而言，生育孩子的安全条件的问题，以及保证在年长父母或父母残疾或死亡时有人担任父母角色的重要性。为了保护在新家庭环境中通过技术生育的孩子的最佳利益，应该制定并执行国际公认的、强制性的生育诊所标准，以便在为寻求不孕服务的高龄父母做出治疗决策时遵循。
