Romanian 66 yr. old mom says she didn't know fetus was a baby

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This is an excerpt from the article. I hope that it is not a duplicate. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4199839.stm

“I got married when I was only 20 and still a student,” she was quoted as saying from her bed at the Panait Sarbu Hospital in Bucharest.

"My husband was also still a student at the atomic physics university back then, and the marriage didn’t last long. We divorced four years later.

"In that time I had two pregnancy terminations - it was the normal thing back then and the accepted form of contraception. If there is anything I regret then it is those terminations, not having a baby now.

“Religion was not a big part of many people’s lives and I had never had any religious education, I believed the party line that a foetus is only considered a life when it is older than three months.”

’Gift from God’

Mrs Iliescu said she “discovered religion” after her marriage and is now Romanian Orthodox. She believes that, after decades of hoping for a child, her daughter’s arrival had divine sanction, the newspaper reported.

“During this time I never gave up my faith in God and in the power of trying to realise one’s dreams,” she said.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40729000/jpg/_40729063_1babyap203c.jpg Baby Eliza Maria was born prematurely by Caesarean section

She spoke of her immense joy when her baby was born, five weeks early, after undergoing nine years of fertility treatment.

“It was the happiest [moment] in my life. She grabbed my finger with her tiny hand and held it - it was a gift from God,” she told the newspaper.

Mrs Iliescu, a retired university professor and author of children’s books, says she is optimistic about her future as a mother and claims her family has a history of longevity.

Dr Bogdan Marinescu, who carried out the fertility treatment, justified the procedure by saying she was in an appropriate condition to give birth.

Mrs Iliescu’s case has led to calls by Romanian officials for a public debate on the medical and ethical consequences of fertility treatments. How do you feel about this situation? Is this fair to the child? Is it a morally correct thing for this woman to do? It almost seems as if she is making up for the babies she aborted.
 
It does sound like she is trying to make up for the children she aborted. I feel sorry for her that she had to go to such extremes to try to ammend her past mistakes. The article didn’t say she is currently married so I assume she did something immoral to become pregnant - either through IVF or fornication.

Obviously I hope she lives a long, healthy life for her daughter’s sake. On the other hand, grandparents sometimes have to raise their grandchildren because the parents are unable to. These circumstances usually aren’t by choice but usually accompanied by tragic situations.
 
A lot of women do this. They have an abortion, regret it, and intentionally get pregnant again to replace the child they lost. I know someone personally who went through this. Of course she wasn’t 66 years old. She got pregnant as a teen. Her mother and boyfriend dragged her to an abortion clinic against her will. She got pregnant again and didn’t tell anyone until she was only a few weeks from her due date. I wonder why…
 
Isn’t it funny how people past the normal childbearing age are often condemed for thinking only of themselves and their “want” for a baby?

“You’ll be 90 years old when the kid graduates from high school!”

“You should be retired, and relaxing, not changing diapers!”

“A child needs someone agile, who can run and play with them!”

And you’ll notice, the evidence the critics use is often centered around the well being of the child involved.

But would these same people profess the same outrage and public opinion to parents of normal childbearing age who choose to abort the child?

The logic seems a bit misplaced here.

Note: I do not support the use of fertilization methods which are deemed illicit by the Catholic Church- no matter how old the person is. That said, there are situations where conception has occured naturally in couples where one or both of the parents are older than “socially” appropriate.

I wish society spent a little less time counting ages, and more time counting dead babies.
 
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