In California Mary Shearing's twin girls are 16 and she is turning 70. Mary is a pioneer - one of the first women in the world to have successful IVF after the menopause.
World's Oldest Moms
Saturday March 13, 2010 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network
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In July 2009, when a 69-year-old Spanish woman, Maria del Carmen, passed away leaving her two-year old twin sons orphaned, it provoked debate over the ethics of helping elderly women give birth. The World's Oldest Moms introduces us to four women who have decided to 'cheat nature' and have babies long after menopause - an ethically and morally loaded journey into the world of fertility technology.
These include the world's oldest first-time mother, who is bringing up her daughter in a large family network in India, a British woman trying for a baby in her seventies, a 70-year-old Californian mother of twins and 69-year-old Spanish mom Maria del Carmen, just months before her death.
Despite a combined age of more than 280, they've all chosen to have babies long after menopause has put a stop to them doing it the old-fashioned way.
As the technology has spread, making older motherhood attainable in every corner of the globe, specific cultural prejudices have brought their own challenges. This journey reveals some of them, by taking us to meet the women and children at the centre of the debate and the doctors who make this all possible.
In reaction to the provocative story of Elizabeth Adeney - a 66-year-old divorcee who sought fertility treatment from the Ukraine - British filmmaker Amanda Blue travels the world to try to understand why older women like these have chosen to get pregnant, and to question the ethics and the morality of the decision. "'My aim was to get beyond the knee-jerk reaction of the media, to meet the women who've pushed against the boundaries set by nature and society to have children in old age," says Amanda Blue, the producer/director of this documentary. She also wanted to explore "why they so disgust us, when men of a similar vintage are getting a firm pat on the back for their lasting virility?"
This myriad of questions is explored through each of the women in the film. "Often they don't have a straightforward answer, but I couldn't help wondering if there was something sexist and ageist converging around these women's bodies and their choices. Or was the outcry justified on behalf of the children?"
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