WHITNEY CURTIS | senior staff writer
When does the government have the right to demand a woman have only a specific number of children? When is the public allowed to sift through an individual’s personal life, health records and finances to dictate how many babies she can birth?
If there is a case for the government’s involvement in such decisions it is being debated regarding Nadya Suleman’s choice to have six embryos implanted in her womb at the same time. Suleman went against medical advice and had three times the suggested amount of embryos placed inside of her. Two of those six eggs split and on Jan. 26, to the world’s shock, Suleman, already the mother of six, gave birth to octuplets.
Since the birth of her eight babies, Suleman has been under constant scrutiny by the media and medical world for her and her doctor’s decision. Not only has she been engulfed by attention for being just the second in United States’ history to give birth to octuplets, but the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy have also caused uproar.
A mother of one set of twins and four other children, this single parent reportedly lives with her mother in a small 1,550 sq. ft. home, filed bankruptcy last year (she has since withdrawn the filing), and does not have any stable income of her own. She also plans to return to school in the fall to complete her master’s degree in counseling.
Certainly, in light of these circumstances Suleman does come across as irresponsible and maybe even a little crazy. But does wanting to be a mother of a large family mean that someone is out of her mind?
“While 14 children may seem excessive to us, a generation or two ago, especially if you talk to people from the mid-west, that wasn’t that uncommon,” associate professor in the Department of History and Political Science Jennifer Walsh, Ph.D. said. “You know, people needed that many children because some of them wouldn’t survive, and if they did, they needed them to work the farms. So, it wasn’t that uncommon to have a lot of children, especially in Catholic communities where birth-control wasn’t used.”
Still, getting pregnant the old–fashioned way because you and your partner don’t believe in birth control is very different from inserting multiple fertilized eggs into a single woman and seeing what happens.
There is a reason why octuplets have not been a regular occurrence in our nation’s history.
Women don’t normally get pregnant with eight babies when they aren’t using special fertilization treatments like in-vitro.
Similarly, having enough room for some extra hands and another mouth to feed on a big farm is different from trying to provide for 14 mouths without a stable income, while living in a parent’s home.
Suleman said her reason for wanting to undergo such treatment is that she had always wanted a large family.
She believes that her love for her children makes her a better mother than many and, with the help of the income she will make after completing her master’s degree; she will be able to provide her children with all of the essentials for a happy and full life.
However, many of us are still left wondering just how Suleman will accomplish all of this when her current plan is to hold each of the newborns for 45 minutes per day, a plan that will take six hours alone to complete even before her other children are tended to, meals are prepared, diapers are changed and schoolwork is completed. It doesn’t take long before outsiders begin to wonder if this mother didn’t sign herself up for this operation before she read all of the fine print in the babies handbook of life.
It is no wonder that the public is outraged at this woman’s irresponsibility. But questions of Suleman’s preparedness for extensive motherhood are only part of what has medical professionals so upset.
Time magazine reports that the American Society of Reproductive Medicine guidelines state a doctor should only implant two embryos into the uterus of a woman under the age of 35. Suleman is 33 years old.
Thus, medical experts are in a fit over Suleman ignoring the advice of medical professionals as well as her doctor’s disregard for agreed-upon ethics of practice.
Although some doctors believe a patient’s choice is paramount, and due to the possibilities of lawsuits, nothing should be done to sway a patient from exactly what he or she wants—whether that is two embryo implants or six—others are stricter in their view of the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm.”
They feel that the risks involved are not worth a woman’s scorn. Considering that multiple-birth pregnancies are much more dangerous to the mother and babies than single or twin-birth pregnancies, many consider it astounding for a doctor to take such liberties even when a patient requests, as Suleman did, that a large number of embryos be implanted within her.
It’s a fine line to walk. Will the government or medical practitioners mandate how many embryos with which a woman can be implanted? If a woman gets pregnant with too many babies than she can care for, will she be forced to undergo an abortion of some of the fetuses in the womb?
And finally, would it be a violation of American freedom if doctors refused to use in-vitro fertilization techniques on women that do not match-up to a specific psychological and financial readiness standard?
“I would be hesitant to go that direction... where we are questioning people’s financial and psychological stability before allowing them to have children,” Walsh said. “We really don’t want to go down the same road as China here.”
Walsh is right. The government and medical professionals cannot mandate how many children a woman can have.
The right to bear children is one of our inalienable rights, especially when it is connected with the right to pursue happiness.
It is wrong to keep a woman with six children already, and no real grasp on the physical, emotional or financial expense, from having another eight babies.
