
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 28, 1993                   TAG: 9312280099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN, 59, GIVES BIRTH, GETS CRITICISM

A 59-year-old British woman, who was artificially impregnated with eggs from a younger woman, gave birth to twins Christmas Day, becoming the oldest woman on record to have a child.

The birth, however, did not result in public tidings of joy, but criticism from some members of the medical community who question the ethics of test-tube pregnancies among older women.

The case "bordered on the Frankenstein syndrome," said Dr. John Marks, the former chairman of the British Medical Association's ethics committee. He added that the woman would be 69 when her children were 10 years old.

The birth was reported Monday by British newspapers. She was turned down for fertility treatment by the ethics committee, which ruled she was too old for the emotional strain of pregnancy, The Sun newspaper said.

But she refused to give up and consulted an Italian doctor who specializes in helping women who have gone through menopause have children.

Dr. Severino Antinori runs a private clinic in Rome and had helped 35 woman aged 48 to 55 to become mothers. He told her there was a 25 percent chance of success, The Sun said.

The woman became pregnant at the age of 58 when eggs donated by an Italian woman in her 20s were fertilized by her husband's sperm and implanted in her.

Test-tube pregnancies for older women have raised several social and medical questions, including if such procedures are fair to the children; if they are the best use of limited medical resources; and if they pose too high a risk to older women.

Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley said the process would not be allowed in Britain for a post-menopausal woman.

"Women do not have the right to have a child. The child has a right to a suitable home," Bottomley said on BBC Radio.

British newspapers reporting the birth said neither the woman nor her 45-year-old husband could be identified, for legal reasons. Nor was the hospital named.

Another London newspaper reporting the birth, the Daily Mail, said no details had been released on the sex of the babies.

The Guinness Book of Records lists the oldest woman to become a mother as Ruth Alice Kistler of Portland, Ore. Kistler gave birth to a daughter at Glendale, Calif., on Oct. 18, 1956, at the age of 57 years and 129 days.

by CNB