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veronica_richI'm relatively certain I'm a Bad Feminist for thinking this, but it can't be helped. In a conversation yesterday with an online friend, we were talking about the woman who gave birth to the octuplets. Apparently she had six children already when she was getting the fertility treatments to get pregnant with these eight. Here are my questions:
1. We're all so conservation-minded and worried about global warming and climate change - but nobody wants to address that old bugaboo, the 800-pound gorilla squat in the middle of the discussion, of population control.
2. Was her insurance company paying for the fertility treatments?
3. At what point does a doctor (or somebody in the medical process) strenuously voice a limit on the number of fetuses the human body can support in one pregnancy?
Detail: 1. I do not propose telling women when they can and cannot get pregnant. That's not what I mean by population control. "Control" comes in educating boys and girls, men and women, as widely as possible about what the average human consumes in a lifetime in the way of energy and food, and of the cost in correctly raising a child to be ready for the world (I mean basic education, nutritious food and shelter, medical care, socialization opportunities; I don't mean a particular parenting philosophy). "Control" comes in NOT romanticizing the birthing and child-rearing process to unrealistic proportions and making girls and women feel inadequate or shamed if they are not inclined to give birth or raise children (which are two different things, as we know).
However, if somebody wants 14 children, so long as they can take care of them and I'm not tapped to help pay for anything beyond school taxes (which I'm willing to do), I'm not going to tell her she can't. That's not particularly my business. It doesn't mean I can't have a negative opinion about it, though.
2. I sure as hell hope not. There are people who already exist who are dying slowly from lack of preventive medical care or treatments when they get a disease, because they have insurance that won't cover those conditions. I have no problem for insurance that covers birth control or abortions or pre- and postnatal care. (I'm iffy on fertility treatments even for childless women, but so far I haven't strenuously argued against it. I feel sort of weird telling a woman she can't have a kid if there's some way she can and she wants it. However, not that weird, as we'll see in point #3.)
3. I'm all for choice to have, as well as to prevent or voluntarily terminate before the third trimester. But if you're going to go to the trouble of pregnancy and giving birth, you presumably want a healthy baby - or more, if it's a multiple birth - is that a safe assumption? What happens naturally in a woman's uterus is supposedly not more than she can naturally handle - if she gets pregnant with quadruplets or quintuplets, or even octuplets, with no help other than from her sperm donor, who am I to second-guess that? BUT - and I confess I do not know what the natural limit is on multiple fetuses without outside help - I think letting a patient gestate eight fetuses from in vitro is irresponsible, both on the doctor's and the patient's parts. How healthy do you think a human fetus is, born several weeks premature and weighing less than two pounds? Multiply that by several. ONE fetus drains vitamins and minerals out of even the most nutritiously-fed mother - not only will eight do more damage, they have to steal from each other as well.
There's a good chance the fertility doc didn't implant eight eggs, but only 3-4 in the hopes that at least one would grow to viability. What happens when it becomes clear some or all have split into twins or triplets? Shouldn't there be some understanding/clause on such treatment that the body can handle only so many fetuses, safely (and for their health), and abort the extras? Many women don't like abortion because they say it interferes with God's plan - but surely none of those would be getting fertility treatments, since their barrenness would suggest their God has already made that ruling.
Aren't opinions wonderful things?
1. We're all so conservation-minded and worried about global warming and climate change - but nobody wants to address that old bugaboo, the 800-pound gorilla squat in the middle of the discussion, of population control.
2. Was her insurance company paying for the fertility treatments?
3. At what point does a doctor (or somebody in the medical process) strenuously voice a limit on the number of fetuses the human body can support in one pregnancy?
Detail: 1. I do not propose telling women when they can and cannot get pregnant. That's not what I mean by population control. "Control" comes in educating boys and girls, men and women, as widely as possible about what the average human consumes in a lifetime in the way of energy and food, and of the cost in correctly raising a child to be ready for the world (I mean basic education, nutritious food and shelter, medical care, socialization opportunities; I don't mean a particular parenting philosophy). "Control" comes in NOT romanticizing the birthing and child-rearing process to unrealistic proportions and making girls and women feel inadequate or shamed if they are not inclined to give birth or raise children (which are two different things, as we know).
However, if somebody wants 14 children, so long as they can take care of them and I'm not tapped to help pay for anything beyond school taxes (which I'm willing to do), I'm not going to tell her she can't. That's not particularly my business. It doesn't mean I can't have a negative opinion about it, though.
2. I sure as hell hope not. There are people who already exist who are dying slowly from lack of preventive medical care or treatments when they get a disease, because they have insurance that won't cover those conditions. I have no problem for insurance that covers birth control or abortions or pre- and postnatal care. (I'm iffy on fertility treatments even for childless women, but so far I haven't strenuously argued against it. I feel sort of weird telling a woman she can't have a kid if there's some way she can and she wants it. However, not that weird, as we'll see in point #3.)
3. I'm all for choice to have, as well as to prevent or voluntarily terminate before the third trimester. But if you're going to go to the trouble of pregnancy and giving birth, you presumably want a healthy baby - or more, if it's a multiple birth - is that a safe assumption? What happens naturally in a woman's uterus is supposedly not more than she can naturally handle - if she gets pregnant with quadruplets or quintuplets, or even octuplets, with no help other than from her sperm donor, who am I to second-guess that? BUT - and I confess I do not know what the natural limit is on multiple fetuses without outside help - I think letting a patient gestate eight fetuses from in vitro is irresponsible, both on the doctor's and the patient's parts. How healthy do you think a human fetus is, born several weeks premature and weighing less than two pounds? Multiply that by several. ONE fetus drains vitamins and minerals out of even the most nutritiously-fed mother - not only will eight do more damage, they have to steal from each other as well.
There's a good chance the fertility doc didn't implant eight eggs, but only 3-4 in the hopes that at least one would grow to viability. What happens when it becomes clear some or all have split into twins or triplets? Shouldn't there be some understanding/clause on such treatment that the body can handle only so many fetuses, safely (and for their health), and abort the extras? Many women don't like abortion because they say it interferes with God's plan - but surely none of those would be getting fertility treatments, since their barrenness would suggest their God has already made that ruling.
Aren't opinions wonderful things?
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:55 pm (UTC)children. Edit: Pardon me: six children, eight newborns. It's just not possible.I won't win popularity contests with my opinion but I think if this mother can't be persuaded to give up some of the kids for adoption, then CPS has to become involved. The woman is not mentally stable*. And I can't imagine grandma is going to be stable for long either.
Alternatively, the government (or community or church) can provide them a huge house to live in (with a nice big yard for all the kids to play in), provide several live-in nannies, provide some vans or SUVs for transportation... and on and on and on. Or is grandpa going to make that much in Iraq to provide all this? Assuming he, you know, LIVES.
Whatever happens next, no matter what it is, it's gonna piss a LOT of people off.
* re stability: According to her mom, she had all these kids because "she's always been obsessed with kids." And she had eight more because "she wanted another girl." And she plans to BREASTFEED ALL OF THEM. I rest my case. She's nuts.