Abstract

How are we to make sense of this, especially from a moral point of view? Do we simply say, as some have, that if it’s technologically possible, then it’s morally permissible? Or that, since men have been fathering children at ever more advanced ages, women should be permitted to do the same thing? (We might christen this "The Tony Randall Argument," in honor of the seventy-seven year old actor who is a new father.) Or do we say that such births are simply selfish acts that put the desires of the parents ahead of any consideration about the well-being of the children? Or do we see this as yet one more reflection of our society’s unrelenting quest for eternal youth?