Apparently the woman who birthed a litter of 8 humans last week is a bona fide Whickity-Whack Crazy Lady. She already has SIX CHILDREN ...under the age of seven! The fact that she didn't have a husband didn't stop her. The fact that she was reproductively challenged didn't stop her. All six kids, as well as the octuplets, were created through in vitro fertilizations.
WWCL's parents have probably paid for all the fertility treatments, and share the blame for this fiasco. Well, even they have reached their limits (and declared bankruptcy recently), a little too late:
She (the grandmother) said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."Oh, and just for extra giggles: at least one of her children is autistic. I have an acquaintance with an autistic son. Fortunately (?), he is considered mildly autistic. Still, his mother says that the care and attention he requires is like that of three or four regular kids.
The Whickity-Whack Crazy Fertility Clinic responsible for this fiasco has not yet been identified. Experts around the country are calling this impregnation everything from "irresponsible" to "unconscionable." I hope they are identified, and some governing body takes a long, hard look at their practice. Are there absolutely NO ethical guidelines? No circumstance under which they'd refuse to impregnate someone? How about a 90-year old or a 9-year old?
So, why are my knickers in a twist over this? It's not as if I'm affected directly. But I think I'm affected indirectly - we all are. If someone can birth a flock of babies ...only with a tremendous amount of medical assistance ...into an already-challenged single-parent household, I think there are ramifications for all of us. I'd even venture a guess that this woman is mentally ill. Not just quirky, or cuckoo for poopy diapers, but actually sick. She's clearly obsessed with babies, to the detriment of the children she's already created. Does anyone doubt that Mommy Dearest will be applying for public assistance -- if she hasn't already? According to an ABC news story, the birth of the octuplets is estimated to be around $200,000. Just the birth. Not any subsequent care.
Yeah, Crazy Lady is OUR problem, all right, and thanks to some greedy doctor, so are her 14 children. I think it was Erma Bombeck who, years ago, proposed the idea of a Parenting License. You need a license to fish, to own a dog, to drive a car. It really seems an accident of evolution that, whether or not one is financially, physically or mentally prepared for all that is involved, anyone with the right plumbing can create life.
And now, you don't even have to have the right plumbing.
Photo copyright Geoff Robinson Photography
6 comments:
Thank you for putting this "miracle birth" in its proper perspective.
Thanks, John. Normally I'm out there in the middle of my Moral Outrage field, all alone. But I've got lots of good company on this one. What has this poor lunatic (and all her "enablers") done to 14 innocent children?
Indeed!
In complete agreement,
Margaret
Florence, Italy
Right on, Miss Nancy. It is just plain irrespsonsible (in addition to everything else you said) to create a large family these days, considering the additional pollution created, the pressure on our natural resources and the dwindling ability of our planet to support an ever-increasing human population.
Hoodie C, my cherished friend, we so rarely disagree that I hope you don't mind if I do so now, respectfully.
There are so many other issues that have a dramatic, direct impact on the environment, I'd put large families way, way down on that list. I don't have any problem with large families (especially two-parent families), as long as they are physically, emotionally and financially capable of raising their children is a safe, loving environment. If no one is in danger, or sucking the welfare teat, it's none of my beeswax.
I can't understand any doctor implanting 8 embryos in a person to begin with. The danger to the mother's life with a "litter" half that size is very real, let alone 8. It's not just her hospital bill which will probably have to be absorbed but we'll probably have 15
people on welfare and medicaid for
a long time.
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