People losing their damn minds #14

From the Scotsman:

"A WOMAN set to become the UK's oldest mother yesterday defended her decision to have a baby at the age of 63, saying it was not taken lightly.

Child psychiatrist Dr Patricia Rashbrook is now seven months pregnant after a £7,000 course of IVF treatment."

You meet the odd child psychologists in my line of work and often they are a) fairly nuts b) don't have children.* So part of me perversely welcomes the news that I know of at least one that is going to have offspring of their own. But still - 63? That's pretty nuts; I reckon I'm really too old for this game - and despite appearances, I'm a couple of decades or so short of 63. The good doctor and her partner have responded to the 'storm of criticism' thus:

"Dr Rashbrook and second husband John Farrant, 61, yesterday said they had fully considered the current and future wellbeing of their child."

When the child is 14, she'll be 77: 'fully considered'? Hmmm. But the damn mind losing incident is more the fertility specialist that made this possible:

"The couple sought the help of maverick fertility doctor Severino Antinori in Rome, who then sent them to Russia to use a donor egg to conceive.

Speaking from his clinic, the professor, who has also said he wants to create the world's first human clone, said the patient's age was "completely irrelevant".

Not just irrelevant but completely irrelevant...

"I specialise in helping couples have children who can't and if I can bring them happiness, where is the harm?" he said."

Ah, but where to begin? It's enough to bring out your inner-Catholic. And as someone raised by atheists, and protestant atheists at that, I shouldn't even have an inner-Catholic.

*Ok, I've only met about three of four. Not necessarily a representative sample obviously but none of them had children and at least two of them were completely mental.