As I understand it, under our current laws and system of ethics, people cannot be restricted from reproducing. However, their having done so, the law is then concerned with the welfare of the children.
Solution first: Social workers should immediately be assigned to Nadya Suleman’s problem: how will she care for and support her 14 children? This should be done to ensure that the children’s needs are met. If deemed necessary Ms. Suleman should receive psychological counseling. She should not be allowed to remove her newborn children from the hospital until a supervised and structured 18-year plan for their care is in place and functioning. Her current children’s living situation should also be evaluated.
Second: We should take responsibility for our part in this debacle:
“”¦the real issue here is that we live in a country with so few regulations on the human fertility business that clinics can engage in practices that can lead to premature births – producing low-birth-weight babies doomed to chronic illnesses and even infant mortality. ”¦ We have created a society that dictates that all reproductive wishes should be answered. Then we criticize an over-her-head mom – whose own mother fretted that she was “obsessed” with having kids – when the inevitable horrors happen. ”¦
You can say her fertility doctors – whoever they are – should have refused to impregnate an overburdened single mother. ”¦ However, in August, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a San Diego fertility clinic had no right to refuse to inseminate a lesbian in a partnership on religious grounds. What happens if doctors refuse a single mom, who can sue based on state law banning discrimination based on marital status?
So please, don’t just bash the unemployed mother. If Suleman were married and rich, this still would not have a happy ending. It’s time for America to wake up to the fact the IVF is not simply a benign reproductive choice.
Lastly, a summary: Ms. Suleman is disabled, lives in a 3-bedroom home with her parents, now has 14 children, and hopes to return next year to graduate school to complete a masters’ degree in psychology. This is delusional. One cannot possibly: (1) go through the rigors of a masters’ program; (2) provide financial support for 14 children; and (3) provide adequate emotional and physical support for 14 children.
Some questions for Ms. Suleman: How do you propose to house, feed, clothe, bathe and transport 14 children? Feed eight at a time when they can’t feed themselves? Handle emergencies? Handle the piles of dirty diapers and laundry? *And* go through a graduate program at the same time? Do you think student loans will provide adequate income for child support? Are you trusting that you can shift the responsibility of caring for your 14 children to your aging parents, fellow church congregants, and college day care center? Have you asked them if they are willing and able to take on that responsibility — financially, physically, emotionally? Or did you just assume they would?
Are you hoping, in hiring media agents, that a corporate conglomerate will shell out a few million for publication and television rights? It certainly seems so. And, if so, did you ask your parents and your children if they would willingly participate in being part of a spectacle, for that is what this is. Move over ‘Kate & Jon Plus Eight,’ step aside ‘Brangelina Plus Six,’ here comes ‘Nadia Suleman’s Circus.’
If this seems harsh, forgive me. Children are precious not because they give a mother unconditional “baby love” or provide entertainment (televised or otherwise) — but because they are loving, thinking individuals who deserve our care, patience and resources. It’s time we, as a country, grew up that responsibility.
What was that old phob about welfare mammas havin’ more babies to up their paycheck? Yeah, uh-huh, no-one, will convince me, a Master of Science, Dawn and I parents to nine children, six children-in-law and four grand-children star-crossed too late to have a child of our own that this is anything more than suckling the public teat.
Though not necessarily the taxpayer teat.
We’d be happy to adopt one.
Her plan is for most of them to die. Perhaps she isn’t aware that’s her plan, but that’s what it is. It’s a common reproductive strategy; biologists call it “high r, low K”.
Dude(tte), that’s pretty harsh. High R Low K is an interesting weighting statistical factor in anthropological and paleo-arch&anthropological anticipations of the behavior of developing hunter/gather and early agrarian societies. To suggest such a throw-back is too much for even a bad attitude about those who have yet to evolve beyond bowing down to gods such as mine to accept.
I have seen it argued that high r low k could be seen in action through the eighteenth and nineteen century American frontier with its large heavily religious families, but have always found those postulations to be somewhat ameri-centric and, as with all things religion, a willful entrance into ignorance.
hey,
In my opinion she is wrong for bringing that many children into this world the fact is she already had multiple children at home. she should have been happy with the kids she had. love them care for them and just be their for them.
it would have been ok for maby one more child but the fact is she is a single mom and unemployed.if she really wanted more children why not wait until she was done her schooling and knuew she could provide for them.
God Wworks in misterious ways however this can not be an act of god this is an act of selfishness on her behalf. the Mirecle here would be that god will provide well for those children and give them better lifes or at least give the whole family an opportunity to stay together and be provided well for.
HuffPo contributor Katherine Thomson thinks Sue is on to something…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-thomson/does-nadya-suleman-think_b_165617.html
Hi,
I have no objection to Nadiya having 14 children or 24 children, it is her business.
But if my herad earned money that goes to government as tax money is being used to provide diapers, disability payments for her hcildren, I am totally irked, on fire.
She said she is obsessed with children! Duh, I am obsessed with Prada bags, so will the government pay for my obsesison with the tax payers money. This is totally ridiculous. I am so furious that I work my ass off and pay taxes so her 14 children family can be fed and taken care of.
What if this becomes an epidemic. If everybody on welfare decides to have 10-15 children hoping the government will keep sending them food stamps and checks for maintainance, how long before our country goes bankrupt like Iceland!
And on top of it she used the student loan money to pay for her children, this is outrageous!
And the CA government which is on the brink of bankruptcy is going to pay million dollars medical fee to Kaiser! Hallulujah!!
Given how the people are misuing our taxmoney, it is high time they regulate the student loan policies, welfare policies and put a cap on how many dependents the welfare would cover for.
I am very pissed at this woman who is stealing my hard earned money from under my palms.
PS: A 32 year old who is working two jobs and still unable to afford one baby!
Tolerating crap like this is what has gotten America into the pathetic shape it is in right now. First of all how does a woman with a serious back injury manage to successfully carry 14 children. You know that if this woman had constant pain there would be no way she would want to make it worse by getting pregnant again. If her back is healthy enough to carry 14 children then she is healthy enough to get a job. The state should cancel her disability immediately and be done with the lies.
The money for the fertility treatments obviously came from her disability checks and the checks that she is collecting for the children she already had that we are paying for. Of course she wants to go back to school now. Single mothers with too many children not only get free tuition at public universities, but free books, additional money for housing and living expenses, and free childcare while they are attending classes or claim to be studying.
I would say that this woman is an idiot but she is obviously smarter than our current system which allows con artists to prosper on a daily basis. Its time that the American people wake up start demanding that those capable of working and taking care of themselves do so.
If only the mainstream media had put as much effort into analyzing the evidence for the Iraq War as Rob has put into figuring out whether or not this lady deserves welfare.
You all have to chill out. You’ll be supporting my litter too. Nothing you can do about it.
I find this woman inspiring.