Headline on an AP story on the mother of six who recently had octuplets: Mother of octuplets mother refused to cull embryos:
After finding out about her pregnancy, the woman declined an option offered by doctors of reducing the number of embryos, her mother said.
She also was counseled about the risks of her pregnancy then in its 12th week and about the option of aborting some fetuses when she arrived at the Kaiser, Dr. Harold Henry said.
“Culling” used to refer to unborn babies! How dehumanizing and monstrous. This and other coverage of the octuplets conveys disgusted disapproval of having so many children.
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From a British news story, “Octuplets’ mother seeks $2m for her story: How her heart-warming tale was revealed as seedy self-indulgence”:
According to her mother, the latest eight are thought to have been from embryos left over from her earlier fertility course. She says the sperm was donated.
Miss Suleman is unmarried, has no partner and no apparent means of financial support. She lives in a hopelessly small house with her divorced parents, one of whom recently filed for bankruptcy.
Her family says her desire for so many children may even be the result of mental illness.
Any one of these factors would surely have denied Miss Suleman fertility treatment, on ethical grounds, if not those of common sense.
The good news, if anything good can come out of this, is that finally the AP is calling a thing what it is. Abortion is a culling of those who can’t defend themselves and its good that the card is finally on the table for all to see.
I’m concerned however that our society is so desensitized that it will not even care.
Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, “bad facts make bad law”. While Miss Suleman’s apparent respect for life is refreshing and commendable, the rest of her story is not so great.
The mother’s financial and, perhaps, mental problems don’t make her choice to keep all of the babies the wrong choice. Better choices could have been made earlier, but the choice to refuse selective abortion? That was right regardless of how much money the mother has in her bank account.
This woman is a moral degenerate for bringing these children into the world – and her doctors share in her sin for enabling this fiasco.
I’ve been trying to understand her motivation, but don’t see any reference to it. Perhaps she thought she would rescue embryos that would otherwise be destroyed.
It would be and interesting trend – for pro-life women to rescue embryos through multiple implantations – whether they were genetically related or not.
Before we praise this as an act of saving lives, perhaps we should reread this part of Veith’s article:
Assuming the mother speaks for her daughter, isn’t this the problem with such fertility treatments in the first place — that there is a specific intent that most of the lives that are created will not survive?
Stephenie @ 6: The rumors here in the L.A. area, where the story has received wide play, is that she intends to sell her story to a media outlet like People for $2 million or more. This is said to be at least a good part of her motivation. This is why I earlier commented that her story is not that great, along with the fact that she apparently fully intends to remain a single mom and to raise 14 children without benefit of a father’s influence. Also, it appears that she may be receiving substantial public assistance already with respect to the six prior children.
I think tODD @ 7 is absolutely right about this whole issue of in vitro fertilization, and its lack of regard for human life.
I was hoping the whole $2 mil deal was more of a way to help take care of things after the fact than a premeditated plan. I missed the mother’s quote.
I guess I still don’t get it. I can’t believe someone would have children just to make money. Of course, there are a lot of things I can’t believe that people do – every day!
a single mother with 14 children under the age of 7. What were the doctors thinking?
In places like Norway where IVF is paid for by the nationalized heath system, the doctors are legally only allowed to place ONE embryo in the uterus at a time. ONE.
I have many serious ethical problems with IVF, but the doctors who place more than ONE or two at the most are extremely irresponsible to say the least!
Sarah @ 11: But how many embryos are they fertilizing? And how many are they discarding? One of the issues with this “Octo-Mom” case was that there were eight embryos “left over” from a prior IVF procedure, and, reportedly, the mom did not want them discarded or unused, because they are little lives. So that is, perhaps, the most problematic issue with IVF, rather than how many are implanted at a time.