On The Eight Baby Lady

Ok, so the mother of octuplets? Batshit crazy. The woman exhibits many or most of the classic signs of an animal hoarder. Really, it's uncanny and rather terrifying.

“I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling.” I'm not sure which is more laughable, her plan to support a family of 15 on less than $50,000 a year (even with food stamps and Medicaid), or the the idea that she is going to go back to school in the fall with 8 seriously premature babies under 1 year and 6 other kids under 10.

I would almost feel better if she would just own up and say she was planning to exploit the fuck out of the kids for Discovery Channel and shitty Wal-Mart books. At least then I'd believe she had a plan.

“All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life. I love my children.” Well, fucking AWESOME. You know, animal hoarders claim to love the animals that are suffering in their care. The difference between normal people who love animals and people who hoard animals is that normal people recognize that their means, their space, and their energy are all finite.

Do people manage to successfully raise and provide for exceptionally large families? Yes. However, it's pretty un-fucking-likely that she is going to join their ranks. Most people who have 14 children don't have them under the age of 10--biology doesn't often work that way. Further, most people who choose to have not only older children to help the household run, but an adult partner.

Do I think that there is something wrong with single parenthood? Nope. I don't. Do I think there is something wrong with having really large families? Not exactly. I sort of question the ethics of bringing so many lives into the world from a an environmental standpoint, but really? People can choose to raise their kids to consume little and tread lightly, and maybe that huge family will consume less than the West County trophy family and their 1.1.1 ratio of individuals, bathrooms, and Humscalades.

HOWEVER I do think that there is a fundamental problem with bringing children into the world for whom you cannot provide--regardless of how many children are in question. The only way that this woman can ever hope to provide for those kids is by exploiting the holy living shit out of them, and that's a pretty fucked up plan.

Suleman? Yeah, batshit crazy. Her doctor? Should have his license balled up and shoved up his ass. I have not experienced the pain of infertility. I cannot imagine what that's like. Per her statements, Suleman had difficulty conceiving. Who knows why? I don't believe she's shared her diagnosis.

Whether she needed help to conceive or no, she could obviously carry a pregnancy--the woman already had 6 kids. So her doctor placing six embryos into her 33-year-old body is completely fucking ridiculous. This was not some last ditch Hail Mary attempt. This was a woman with SIX children. Two split? WHO GIVES A SHIT? Even if they hadn't, she still would have had sextuplets. How the fuck is THAT a good outcome, for mom, for babies, or for the community?

Clearly, what we need is for the medical community to step up to the plate and police themselves--with rules and guidelines and big-like-the-hand-of-god consequences for those who flout them. Like I said, I've never experienced infertility, and I'm not a reproductive endocrinologist. There might be cases where it makes a certain amount of ethical and/or medical sense to transfer that many embryos into a woman. This was CLEARLY not one of those cases.

However, if doctors don't do something about themselves soon, then lawmakers will. Don't believe me, and think personal choice will prevail? We have in place all manner of laws to protect people from their own stupid fucking choices. Example? Suicide is illegal. Call 911, say you plan to kill yourself, and soon the cops will be at your house to lock your crazy ass up for your own good.

I've read on various blogs and online communities that this is an issue of reproductive freedom and choice. And to some extent, I agree. Further, laws are very rarely subtle or sophisticated, and by design they are not meant to deal with the individual, but instead the aggregate. It would be a bad thing for lawmakers to regulate the use of these technologies because they really won't be able to do a very good job, but it would be a worse thing for no one to do anything.