Roger Gosden

Fertility treatments, in particular in-vitro fertilization, have made it possible for women in their forties and fifties to become pregnant. In the following viewpoint, Roger Gosden contends that these pregnancies are less risky than critics claim and that late-in-life motherhood can be a positive experience for both mother and child. According to Gosden, older women experience few complications during their pregnancies, and their children do as well or better than the children of younger mothers. Gosden is a professor of reproductive biology at Leeds University in Leeds, England, and the author of Designing Babies: The Brave New World of Reproductive Technology, from which this excerpt was taken.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to Gosden, what were some of the medical concerns cited by the National Institutes of Health in their...