Medical, Ethical Flap Erupts Over Births to Briton, 59 : Fertility: A doctor condemns the case as bordering on the ‘Frankenstein syndrome.’ Others support a right to bear children at any age.

A medical and ethical controversy erupted here Monday after the birth of twins to a 59-year-old woman in a London clinic over the weekend.

One British doctor who opposes artificial fertilization for a woman of 59--which the mother in the London clinic had received--condemned the case as bordering on the “Frankenstein syndrome.”

Others spoke of the right to bear children at any age--even if it means that the children will grow up in the care of elderly and possibly frail parents.

The British woman, who has not been publicly identified, was given fertility treatment in Rome by Italian specialist Severino Antinori and gave birth by Cesarean section Saturday. The woman, who reportedly is a well-to-do business executive married to a 45-year-old economist, was implanted with four embryos after her husband’s sperm was used to fertilize eggs donated by an anonymous Italian woman in her 20s.

British Health Minister Virginia Bottomley declared Monday that such treatment would not be allowed in Britain for post-menopausal women. “Women do not have the right to have a child,” she said, although a child “has a right to a suitable home.”

“We cannot stop people (from) going to any country in the world for treatment,” she said. “But maybe we’ll renew our efforts to have discussions with other countries as to the examples we set and how they can establish ethical controls over some of the dramatic achievements in modern medicine.”

But Dr. Sandy McNamara, chairman of the British Medical Assn., said he believes the case was a matter only for the woman and her physician. “I would not want to condemn either the woman or the doctor,” he said. “I can fully understand a woman being desperate for a child, even if she has left it rather late.”

Dr. John Marks, a former chairman of the association, disagreed, pointing out that at age 69 the woman would have 10-year-old twins to contend with. He added the case “bordered on the Frankenstein syndrome” and that he found it “quite horrifying.”

And Dame Mary Donaldson, 73, former chairwoman of the Interim Licensing Authority for Human In Vitro Fertilization and Embryology, said 59 is too old to have a baby.

“The first thing you have to bear in mind is that the welfare of every prospective child is paramount,” she said. “I do not believe every woman has an inalienable right to have a child.

“After all, a child is a gift, and because an elderly woman wants to fulfill her desire to have a child is not sufficient reason to enable her to do so.”

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Ian Craft, the director of the London Fertility Center, expressed sympathy with older women who wish to have children--even though his clinic had refused to treat the British woman.

“Although I am not a proponent of fertility treatment for older women,” he said, “I think a woman of an older age, up to a certain point, has as much right to be treated as (does) a younger woman.

“I think it would be a negative thing if, because of the clamor of the media and the knee-jerk reaction of the authorities, they fixed an upper age limit for women--when there is no age limit for men.”

The argument over the top age when a woman should bear children is expected to have ramifications in other countries as doctors and government officials take opposite sides in the case.

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

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The Sun newspaper of London compared the recent case to that of Mary Shearing, who was 53 when she gave birth to twins in Anaheim on Nov. 10 last year.

The Sun quoted Shearing on Monday as warning the British mother, “I wish this lady all the luck in the world--she is going to need it.”

Shearing said she did not regret having her twins, Amy and Kelly, who have brought her “sheer joy.” But she added: “I hope this lady and her husband have sat down and thought about exactly what they are planning.”

Dr. Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh and a member of the fertilization and embryology authority, said advances in science mean that officials are dealing with a changing ethical situation.

“There is a lot of discomfort that people would feel,” he said, “about the possible welfare of a child to parents who will age probably in a fairly severe way at a stage in the life of the child when maximum energy is required.

“There is no absolute certainty in any of this. We are now capable of deciding on matters that were not even in our knowledge system ten years ago. You cannot expect an infallible, absolutely precise way of steering through all this stuff.”

The new mother of twins went to the controversial Italian specialist for treatment after the ethics committee of a top London clinic ruled she was too old to face the emotional strain of pregnancy.