The headlines read: Last week, a single woman who lives with her parents in California gave birth to eight babies.
She already has six children, ages two to seven. All have been conceived, including the octuplets, with in-vitro fertilization from supposedly the same donor sperm.
A team of almost 50 delivered the babies and each will have to stay in the hospital for at least a month and most likely have behaviour and physical problems from being so premature.
Hospital bills? Into the millions. If she doesn't have insurance then who pays for all this mayhem? We do. Great.
Some people are questioning why a doctor would perform such a procedure on a woman who clearly has a problem, nor the means to pay, or absorb into her life, such a venture.
Last I read, this woman's mother claims she's had enough and was planning on kicking her daughter out when she gets home from the hospital.
Rumor has it she's seeking 2 million to be interviewed.
Lovely.
So the ethical questions are - Do we have the right as a society to tell people how many children they can have? Is it a doctor's job to monitor such a thing? Is it his or her job to tell someone: no you don't make enough money, or you aren't married or you already have enough children so you can't participate in in-vitro fertilization at this clinic?
Some doctors are up in arms about this, saying they can't tell a patient what to do.
I'm inclined to agree.
But... I don't agree with making money off of your children, or in her case, having children. She claims eight was not the original number. That they must've multiplied because of all her hormone therapies, whatever that means.
But ,whoever her crazy, nameless doctor is, he or she should've warned her that that was a possibility!
Like that boring cable show of the family with 18 kids that all start with the letter J, I'm generally against profiting from your offspring like that. Asking for money to be interviewed makes the woman now seem to be a bit...shady. Stupid. Looking for a buck.
Consequences...they are the ultimate mother-in-law in the room, hovering, waiting to inflict justice.
So now, I don't even know. What is the fine line that a doctor can't cross? Is there one? To prevent this from happening again, do we want doctors making those decisions for us?
9 comments:
Great minds think alike. I also posted about this.
It's her body, right? Now I personally question the mental stability of anyone who wants more than 6 kids, although many of sound mind do! But the doctors hands are tied. They could deny her services, but she would find someone else.
And as far as the ultimate M.I.L, consequences, I feel as a country we have either softened them or completely removed them from our society. What happens if you have sex? You get pregnant. Wait, we don't want to punish someone with a baby, let's make it easier to abort. What happens if you get into debt and can't pay it? You are tied to it until you can pay back your creditors, liquidate all assets, and you are left with nothing. Wait, let's give them a clean slate called declaring bankruptcy. You want to have 2 soccer teams of kids and you can't afford them? Your kids will be removed and you'll be declared unfit. Oh wait, we'll get you on government aid or better yet the media will hype this up so you can start making money off your mental instability. We have removed so many of our natural consequences, it is tearing our country down.
Ok, it is too early in the morning to get this opinionated. It is going to be a long day!
My favorite part was the fact that she said she wanted to breast feed. Are you kidding me? She would be either breast feeding or pumping literally all day long. As if, lady. This shows that she really had no regard for the consequences of her decision. I can only think she was wowed by those cable TV shows and thought she could get on board. And her doctors? The cynical side of me says maybe they were a little enamored by the publicity that would come their way. Choice and accountability--if only there was somewhere women/people could learn those values......
I know a friend who is a 5 footer like me, extremely small frame that was having difficulty getting pregnant. Her Dr. put her on clomed, the highest dose, without watching her closely. She got pregnant with triplets, who were born extremely early, had major complications, etc. The nurses of the doctor confided in her that he wanted a "multiple pregnancy on his resume, and all the publicity". So there are those doctors out there. But this lady seems to have more going on than iresponsible or fame-seeking doctors. You feel bad for her parents and her kids.
It's a hard call for me. What to do, I mean. If a lady came to me, had six children, had no money, no home, etc. and asked me to fund her pregnancy and life thereafter, I'd have a little sit down with her. But isn't that what I'm doing? Funding it? It doesn't seem right, but I don't know how to go about fixing the issue.
Again, personal responsibility. You're not doing anybody any favors by removing consequences. (Not you personally :) )
I don't think doctors can decide how many kids we can have. How many is too many? Who would get to decide the magic number? Isn't it China where you are only supposed to have 2 or you have to pay a fine? Maybe if a red flag is raised they should have to refer them to a psychologist first.
And as for the money thing, I am torn on that. I don't think you should be able to profit from your children but I sometimes watch the show Jon and Kate plus 8 (A set of twins and a set of sextuplets. He works and she stays home with the kids). The mom is constantly saying how lucky they are that their kids are given such great opportunities because of the show (they went to Disneyworld, Utah to ski, etc., and people send them clothes and things). She is genuinely thankful that her kids will get to be like other kids and have opportunites to do fun things where regularly they wouldn't have been able to afford it.
Are they profiting off of their children? Yes, but for me it is different than this lady w/ 14 kids. She just seems so irresponsible to try for more when she already is a single mom w/ 6 kids. Jon and Kate struggle w/ 8 and there are two of them. I can't imagine how this woman is going to do it.
P.S. I LOVE the picture! :) Very funny...
She said she wants to breastfeed? Seriously, she'd never recover. Mine still need a pep talk now and then (As is come on ladies, you can do it!) and I only had one at a time!
Personally I think she's not playing with a full deck, perhaps craves the attention, but who am I to say, I'm not of the type who can handle more than three. Some people want a lot of kids. Nothing wrong with that.
On many levels, we definitely live in a - buy now, pay later - society, and boy have the chickens come home to roost on that one.
I suppose the doctors can't legally tell us what to do about how many children to have (though I have heard a lot of doctors say they it was very irresponsible to put that many embryos into somebody because the body simply can't handle that- I don't know), BUT...
where were her parents through all of this? Why weren't they counseling her, or sending her to counseling? They seem completely fed up with her now, but they needed to be fed up with her BEFORE she decided to get pregnant again! No dad for these poor children...what a sad life for all of them.
I just saw the women in an interview with Ann Curry. Hello plastic surgery! She can't even close her puffy lips she's had so much work done.
Post a Comment