2 Cents: The Octuplet Lady

I am a few weeks late on this, but I watched the Dateline (or whoever) special last weekend and, as I watched, I thought that I would probably have to lay out some sort of blog post on the Crazy Baby Factory Lady.

(see, e.g., this article if you're unclear as to what I'm talking about)

The interview she did with Ann Curry helped make her seem less whack-job crazy, and more standard-style crazy like most of us. I think you have to break down her issues into two distinct categories: Wanting To Have Kids and then Raising 14 Bloody Children.

Wanting to Have Kids
Nadya Suleman wanted to have a big family. There are many reasons for this, and it sounds as if the way she was raised had a big influence on this desire. She underwent in vitro fertilization (or something similar) 5 times, and ended up with 6 kids because the last pregnancy resulted in twins. Then, according to her interview, she was happy and done.

But she had potential eggs left over at the clinic. And, she's religious or spiritual in such a way that she wanted to give those eggs a shot. I can respect that, even if my own opinion on the matter would be significantly different. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details but the doctors gave one more go at pregnancy (for a presumably 7th or 7th/8th child) and BAM. A friggin' percussion section takes up residence in her uterus.

Now, I don't "agree" with someone who wants to have any more than say, 3 kids on their own. 2 or 3 children, as a single parent who is still pursuing her education, already taxes my conscience. 5 or 6 is downright silly. But I'm also aware that it's my opinion and I don't think there is anything inherently immoral about it. Especially after seeing her interviewed, where she came across as tired and a bit exasperated but not unduly nuts.

Her worst decision was in having "one more go" at her remaining ova. I can see the moral significance--if you believe that every "life" deserves a chance, you'd want to give these eggs a shot--but maybe they should have been donated to another infertile couple instead.

Raising 14 Bloody Children
So she got pregnant with what she thought was 7 kids (the 8th was a surprise during delivery). It is possible to selectively abort multiple fetuses in this situation, but after reading the above rationale for having the babies, why on earth would anyone expect her to do this? She wanted to give those eggs a shot, and boy howdy did they take her up on the offer.

But what's done is done, and I can't really fault her for not terminating any of the fetuses. Moreover, she now has 14 kids. Should she select some to give up for adoption? That seems arbitrary. Everybody is calling on various companies to boycott her, but while I believe she has been guilty of poor decision making, once the kids are out of the womb and walking around, my greater sense of charity towards the children overrides any sense that she should be punished. Because let's be honest, punishing Suleman is just punishing her children, who didn't do anything wrong here.

So I think anybody who wants to send them diapers or crates of baby clothes should go ahead and do so. Whether or not it "encourages" this kind of behavior is irrelevant; the behavior happened and now there are 14 kids that need assistance.

Final Tally
For those keeping score at home, here were Ms. Suleman's objective mistakes:

1. One of her first 6 children -- the 4th, I believe -- is autistic. That right there should have been the end of the line as far as having more babies; raising an autistic child has got be as taxing as 2 or 3 developmentally normal children.

2. ADOPTION, lady. One of her common refrains to Ann Curry is that she just wanted to have a big family like she didn't have, and that she wanted to have children all her own. I can respect that. I can even respect having one or two kids biologically to sate that desire. But after that? There are SO many children that could use a better home, why on earth would you have even 2 or 3 more on purpose when you could just adopt?