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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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Date: 2009-02-01 03:25 pm (UTC)I have extreme issue with this because of all the families who provide for their kids themselves and single moms raising a couple kids alone who works and may get government assistance but not hand-outs.
Where are their donations when they had the common sense to realize it is in their god's hands whether or not their sexual union produces children?????
I have friends who tried for almost 10 years to have a child, but knew that fertility treatments were nonsense and instead chose to adopt a child from a Russian orphanage. That little boy, now almost 5, has a lovely home with 2 doting parents. My friends brought an 18 month old home who could not speak, was claimed to have a heart murmur and now has a better vocabulary than probably 99% of his peers and is completely healthy.
Despite that, stories like this make me weep for people like them who NEED to have biological children because both parents have upper end IQs, have good paying jobs and are excellent parents.
Population control is one thing, but when you look at all the people in the world NOT having biological children who are smart, have steady employment, don't abuse drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, you may begin to realize that human civilization has a finite future. The more children the lesser intelligent people have, the less capable humans they will produce. Either that or there will become such a divide between the smart and the stupid that people will soon realize civil rights have to be sacrificed.
An advancing civilization cannot allow rampant freedoms for individuals. There are so many directionless youths out there now without any self-control or sense of responsibility.
This case is the perfect example - where was the personal responsibility from this woman? Follow that up with no one with the guts or forethought to say to this ignorant cunt "Don't you think you have enough kids," and you have the worst that a free-society produces - 8 kids which SOMEONE other than the parent has to provide for probably at least 16 years.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 07:40 pm (UTC)