Monday, February 2, 2009

Octuplets, really?...

I hope I don't piss too many people off by writing this but I have been thinking a lot since hearing about the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets. Does anybody else think that maybe we are getting just a little tiny bit carried away here? I am all about science and research and I am completely thankful for the medical breakthroughs that have happened in modern times. However, let us stop for just a second and think about the repercussions of the decision this one woman has made. She now has 14 children, all age 7 or under. She is a single mother. I read a couple of AP articles about her and apparently she is working on her Master's degree in counseling and she has a Bachelor's degree in something like child development, can't remember exactly. My point is, she is not wealthy. She lives with her parents. The career that will likely follow with her degrese is not likely to make her wealthy any time soon. How is she going to afford 14 children? Well, my guess is that most likely she will come to rely on public assistance. They were saying on the news that the medical bills alone would likely reach into the millions. Somebody has to pay for that, right? And all of this was a choice made by this woman and her doctor. She chose this. She. Chose. This. Yet, she cannot support this decision alone, financially or otherwise. So where does the line get drawn between this woman's apparent obsession with becoming a mother and her right to make choices about her own body, and her responsibility to society? Don't get me wrong. I am pro-choice and I am in no way saying that this was not this woman's right to make this decision, I am just asking why this woman didn't make a choice that was a more responsible one. And would it have been considered inappropriate for her doctor to advise her against this, or to even refuse to implant her embryos because of a sense of responsibility to society? I know that this skirts around the abortion issue a little bit but that is not at all what I am trying to discuss here. I just think this woman had a moral obligation to make a choice that was different from the choice she made. And now society and it's already crumbling financial system will have to bear the burden for her poor choices. Am I just being a cold-hearted bitch or does anyone else share my frustration over this?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree 100%. It infuriates me that any doctor would have agreed to implant 8 embryos into this woman knowing she already had 6 children under 7, much less that the woman herself would have thought it was a rational idea. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what would make any unmarried woman who lives with her parents want have 14 children. You know I am pro choice too, but this is ridiculous. I think it was the doctor's responsibility to put this woman through some type of psychological assessment before implanting her with so many embryos. I don't care what her degree is in, she is obviously insane.

Wendy Cobb said...

Right there with you girl. I think the doctor who implanted them should lose his license. I've been where those babies are right now, I've seen my child hooked up to every piece of machinery hers are, and I know exactly what they are up against because of her selfish obsession. It's unbelievable....