the ethics of octuplets....

[Care4all]

I don't agree with her having so many children, I think it's selfish and irresponsible.
This planet has a finite amount of resources and 6.7 billion humans is more than enough.

I know overpopulation isn't a popular subject, because in a capitalist society the horror of having less customers doesn't bear thinking about. But I reckon pretty soon it's going to become an issue we can't ignore any more.

we don't have an over population problem in this country....in fact, we don't even produce enough children to replace ourselves, or the boomers.

Westernized countries are set on the path of extinction....non westernized countries have overpopulation problems with finite resources....

care

 

[Ravi]

I don't agree with her having so many children, I think it's selfish and irresponsible.
This planet has a finite amount of resources and 6.7 billion humans is more than enough.

I know overpopulation isn't a popular subject, because in a capitalist society the horror of having less customers doesn't bear thinking about. But I reckon pretty soon it's going to become an issue we can't ignore any more.

we don't have an over population problem in this country....in fact, we don't even produce enough children to replace ourselves, or the boomers.

Westernized countries are set on the path of extinction....non westernized countries have overpopulation problems with finite resources....

care

Very true. Hey, is this woman white? Maybe William Joyce is the sperm donor, he's always going on about producing more white babies.

For the record, I have no problem if the government has to foot a large portion of the bill for these kids. They are citizens, after all, and isn't their fault their mother is a crackpot.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Just try walking in the shoes of this woman. None of us know her, do we?

I know, "Don't judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes, that way, when you do judge them, you are a mile away, and you have their shoes."

I wouldn't want to know this woman. Nor would I want to walk in her shoes. Even her own mother wants to abandon her now that she has 14 kids and no husband.

Of course you don't want to know this woman. As you say, even her own mother wants to abandon her. Do you think there's no connection between the rejection this woman feels by her own family and her desire to birth more children?

Judging her by telling her how fucked up she is will not help her get over the obsession with bearing children--if that's what has motivated her--or in any way be supportive of these children she has brought into this world.

 

[Sky Dancer]

There are numerous ethical issues to discuss that wrap themselves around this one woman's experience. Why aren't we discussing them? Is this all about sitting back on our high horses and judging this one woman?

What about the ethics of the use of fertility drugs? In-vitro fertlilzation? Single parenthood?

What about the ethics of deciding as a global society to limit the birth of children--based on one nations middle class values?

There are a plethora of ethical issues wrapped up in one extremely unusual situation. How many births of octuplets have there been on the planet? How many studies have been done on quads, quintuplets, triplets and so on?

What if this woman were exceptionally wealthy and had a staff of nannies round the clock to care for these children? Would you all still sit in judgment of her on your high horses?

We know a few things--and we speculate and assume a tremendous amount. It is possible this woman is mentally ill. Should she be sterilized because she is mentally ill? Would that satisfy some of you? Should her fetuses have been aborted, all but one?

Bottom line--sadly--these threads are about nothing but bashing by people who feel superior. We have a number of complex issues that have been raised by this one woman's experience.

Does an individual family have the right to determine when and what circumstances to bring a child or children into the world.

All of you are acting as if this woman PLANNED to have eight children at once. Is that true? Wasn't her plan to have one more child?

How many of you think you ought to be able to control other people's family size?

How about some stranger coming up to you and telling YOU that you have no right to have any more children?

 

[Care4all]

I don't agree with her having so many children, I think it's selfish and irresponsible.
This planet has a finite amount of resources and 6.7 billion humans is more than enough.

I know overpopulation isn't a popular subject, because in a capitalist society the horror of having less customers doesn't bear thinking about. But I reckon pretty soon it's going to become an issue we can't ignore any more.

we don't have an over population problem in this country....in fact, we don't even produce enough children to replace ourselves, or the boomers.

Westernized countries are set on the path of extinction....non westernized countries have overpopulation problems with finite resources....

care

Very true. Hey, is this woman white? Maybe William Joyce is the sperm donor, he's always going on about producing more white babies.

For the record, I have no problem if the government has to foot a large portion of the bill for these kids. They are citizens, after all, and isn't their fault their mother is a crackpot.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Why do most people have children? How much of that motivation is altruistics? Isn't there some selfish desire mixed with other motivations in deciding to be a parent?

Unless, it is an 'accidental' preganancy. Isn't it possible that eight children are an 'accidental' result of fertility drugs and invitro fertilization?

It's possible that eight embryos were not implanted. Sometimes the embryos split and become twins.

 

[Sky Dancer]

What about the ethics of eugenics? Should only 'normal' people have children? Who gets to decide who is 'normal'?


"Less than six months after coming to power, the Nazis passed a law to prevent "congenitally defective births." The many Weimar marriage, sex and eugenic counseling centers were observed and evaluated by the Nazis in order to use their files to target certain people for sterilization.(22) Hence, within a year of coming to power, the Nazis had started some 250 eugenic courts whose function was to decide who was worthy to procreate. These eugenic courts took applications from social workers and physicians urging sterilizations, taking decision-making from tens of thousands of individuals.(23)

The purpose of Nazi use of eugenics courts and forced or pressured sterilizations was to keep the "tinfit" from reproducing. In this, the Nazi regime was not that much different from American eugenicists and the Weimar democracy, except that the term "tinfit" now had a more racial interpretation, as if somehow this was worse than had been the interpretation before Hitler and the Nazis. Whatever the respective motives of Weimar and Hitler, the whole infrastructure for the Nazi sterilization-eugenics program had been laid by the democracy the Nazis had overthrown.

We now turn to Nazi abortion policy. As we have seen, there had been agitation throughout the Weimar period to liberalize/legalize abortion. This resulted in a compromise: Liberalization. Abortion remained illegal but was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, making the punishment essentially a fine and not a prison sentence.

Hence, in 1933, in their first year of power, the Nazis passed a law forbidding abortion to Germans, increasing the penalties as they had been before Weimar liberalization.(24) The Nazis wanted to increase the birthrate so as to have soldiers for their military. In March 1934, however, the Hereditary Health Court in Hamburg rendered a judgment which stated that abortion on grounds of racial health was not an offense. In its decision, it referred to a Supreme Court decision during the Weimar democracy seven years earlier, allowing the procedure for "medical necessities."(25) In June 1935 the sterilization law was also amended to allow abortions on eugenic grounds and these abortions had to be followed by sterilizations, dependent -- technically -- on the woman's consent.(26) Thus, sterilization, eugenics and abortion all come together."
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/air/air_vol16no1_2001.html

 

[Care4all]

There are numerous ethical issues to discuss that wrap themselves around this one woman's experience. Why aren't we discussing them? Is this all about sitting back on our high horses and judging this one woman?

1What about the ethics of the use of fertility drugs? In-vitro fertlilzation? Single parenthood?

2What about the ethics of deciding as a global society to limit the birth of children--based on one nations middle class values?

3There are a plethora of ethical issues wrapped up in one extremely unusual situation. How many births of octuplets have their been on the planet?

4What if this woman were exceptionally wealthy and had a staff of nannies round the clock to care for these children? Would you all still sit in judgment of her on your high horses?

5We know a few things--and we speculate and assume a tremendous amount. It is possible this woman is mentally ill. Should she be sterilized because she is mentally ill? Would that satisfy some of you? Should her fetuses have been aborted, all but one?

Bottom line--sadly--these threads are about nothing but bashing by people who feel superior.

Question 1, I would have to recuse myself because I am too close to the issue.

2. This would be unethical.

3. Don't know about how many octuplets have been successfully delivered in the world, but i would bet, less than a handful.

4. I would bet they wouldn't be....

5. No on the sterilization. And no on the fetuses being aborted, unless she wished.

care

 

[Sky Dancer]

I'm just pointing out that if we examine the multiple ethics issues involved in this one woman's family experience it's a more interesting and complicated discussion.

Of course, if posters would rather verbally tar and feather the mother and anyone else they can think of that's always an option. Even if the mother of this woman who had the octuplets considers her daughter mentally il', that in itself, raises interesting questions.

How many of us get to choose our parents? How many of us may have been aborted if there was a law prohibiting mentally ill people from giving birth?

 

[Againsheila]

It seems to me that this woman is off her rocker.

Then again, she didn't want to destroy her left over fertilized eggs.

Such a dilemma.

Bush likes snowflake babies and he's got a big ranch in Crawford.

I think it will be more like what Roomy has said....she is considered a celebrity now....the money is flowing in from people's generosity....a nanny or two will solve the problem...nothing is unsolvable with this situation....i see it as no big deal...

last year we had a couple of pregnant women that had 7 babies at once through invitro, who also had other children at home, here in the united states, no one complained about these women? What's going on here? Why the outrage? The nanny at the hospital says the mother is a fabulous mother with all her babies...according to the article?

My main concern is that you all think that you should have a say in what this woman does, reproductively....

I see it as absolutely NONE of our business and will fight Universal health care TOOTH AND NAIL, if THIS is what it will be like when it comes in to play....ALL OF YOU deciding for me, what is appropriate and what is not, where it relates to my own body and my own health....

it surprises me ravi, that those that take the stance of abortion being acceptable because the woman should have the right, to privacy regarding her own reproductive choices, yet every pro choice person is now saying the OPPOSITE?

quite confusing...to say the least?


I didn't hear about those women that each had 7 babies at once, were they married? IMO, that makes a BIG difference. It takes two to raise children. I'm still against having a litter of babies. Those women that each had babies? How many of them are special needs?

There is a difference between being pro-choice and being stupid. Aborting some of those fetus's would have giving the other one's a better chance at a NORMAL life. If you want God to make the decision, simply abort the ones that are easiest. I'm sure God never intended for us to have litters. Better yet, don't implant more than two or three embryos at a time. If they don't take, just try again.

 

[Againsheila]

I'm just pointing out that if we examine the multiple ethics issues involved in this one woman's family experience it's a more interesting and complicated discussion.

Of course, if posters would rather verbally tar and feather the mother and anyone else they can think of that's always an option. Even if the mother of this woman who had the octuplets considers her daughter mentally il', that in itself, raises interesting questions.

How many of us get to choose our parents? How many of us may have been aborted if there was a law prohibiting mentally ill people from giving birth?

Would you be against a law requiring no more than 3 embryos to be implanted at one time?

 

[Againsheila]

I don't agree with her having so many children, I think it's selfish and irresponsible.
This planet has a finite amount of resources and 6.7 billion humans is more than enough.

I know overpopulation isn't a popular subject, because in a capitalist society the horror of having less customers doesn't bear thinking about. But I reckon pretty soon it's going to become an issue we can't ignore any more.

we don't have an over population problem in this country....in fact, we don't even produce enough children to replace ourselves, or the boomers.

Westernized countries are set on the path of extinction....non westernized countries have overpopulation problems with finite resources....

care

Americans have children at replacement value while immigrants have an average 7.5 children per family. Soon, this won't be America anymore. And yes, we do have an over population problem. While we've been good at limiting the number of our children, our government has seen to it that we are overrun with immigrants, both legal and illegal. According to one report, at the current rate of growth, our state will run out of water by 2016. I live in Washington State, the Pacific Northwest, who would have ever thought we'd run out of water? Worse...our state government isn't even discussing the situation. They've spent 30 years trying to fix our traffic problems and failing miserable, does anyone believe they'll fix a water shortage in 7 years that they haven't even admitted yet?

 

[Care4all]

I'm just pointing out that if we examine the multiple ethics issues involved in this one woman's family experience it's a more interesting and complicated discussion.

Of course, if posters would rather verbally tar and feather the mother and anyone else they can think of that's always an option. Even if the mother of this woman who had the octuplets considers her daughter mentally il', that in itself, raises interesting questions.

How many of us get to choose our parents? How many of us may have been aborted if there was a law prohibiting mentally ill people from giving birth?

Would you be against a law requiring no more than 3 embryos to be implanted at one time?

yes, it is none of their business in my personal opinion....there are two few instances to legislate, as well and each circumstance could be different....as the article stated...an older woman would need more embryos implanted to ensure one of them attached to the uterus than a 20 year old.

If Doctors thru the AMA want to institute such an ethics rule with punishment, they can...i'm fine with that...

WE DON'T KNOW if the doctor implanted 8 embryos...one article said that he could have implanted fewer, but they split and multiplied in to twins....an act of nature, even if drugs induced such, which we also do not know...

care

 

[Againsheila]

There are numerous ethical issues to discuss that wrap themselves around this one woman's experience. Why aren't we discussing them? Is this all about sitting back on our high horses and judging this one woman?

What about the ethics of the use of fertility drugs? In-vitro fertlilzation? Single parenthood?

What about the ethics of deciding as a global society to limit the birth of children--based on one nations middle class values?

There are a plethora of ethical issues wrapped up in one extremely unusual situation. How many births of octuplets have there been on the planet? How many studies have been done on quads, quintuplets, triplets and so on?

What if this woman were exceptionally wealthy and had a staff of nannies round the clock to care for these children? Would you all still sit in judgment of her on your high horses?

We know a few things--and we speculate and assume a tremendous amount. It is possible this woman is mentally ill. Should she be sterilized because she is mentally ill? Would that satisfy some of you? Should her fetuses have been aborted, all but one?

Bottom line--sadly--these threads are about nothing but bashing by people who feel superior. We have a number of complex issues that have been raised by this one woman's experience.

Does an individual family have the right to determine when and what circumstances to bring a child or children into the world.

All of you are acting as if this woman PLANNED to have eight children at once. Is that true? Wasn't her plan to have one more child?

How many of you think you ought to be able to control other people's family size?

How about some stranger coming up to you and telling YOU that you have no right to have any more children?

I've been told that more than once, including by my own mother who KNEW I'd had a tubal. When people find out both my kids are special needs, many of them ask how I could ever have brought another special needs kid into the world after the first one. The truth is, I didn't know my first was special needs when I got pregnant with my second. If I had, I might not have had my second. I do believe in being responsible when it comes to bearing children. Now if I can be responsible and refuse to try again, knowing that I could have another special needs kids, why do you think I have no right to judge a woman who KNOWS that she's going to bring special needs kids into the world?

This woman also has special needs kids in her first 6 children, do you really believe she should bring 8 more special needs kids into the world?

 

[Care4all]

I don't agree with her having so many children, I think it's selfish and irresponsible.
This planet has a finite amount of resources and 6.7 billion humans is more than enough.

I know overpopulation isn't a popular subject, because in a capitalist society the horror of having less customers doesn't bear thinking about. But I reckon pretty soon it's going to become an issue we can't ignore any more.

we don't have an over population problem in this country....in fact, we don't even produce enough children to replace ourselves, or the boomers.

Westernized countries are set on the path of extinction....non westernized countries have overpopulation problems with finite resources....

care

Americans have children at replacement value while immigrants have an average 7.5 children per family. Soon, this won't be America anymore. And yes, we do have an over population problem. While we've been good at limiting the number of our children, our government has seen to it that we are overrun with immigrants, both legal and illegal. According to one report, at the current rate of growth, our state will run out of water by 2016. I live in Washington State, the Pacific Northwest, who would have ever thought we'd run out of water? Worse...our state government isn't even discussing the situation. They've spent 30 years trying to fix our traffic problems and failing miserable, does anyone believe they'll fix a water shortage in 7 years that they haven't even admitted yet?

no, we do not produce children at replacement value sheila....why else would we have a problem with the boomers and social security...where we have 2.5 workers for every boomer getting paid SS but 40 years ago we had 7 people for every retiree receiving SS?

I agree with you on water, but that's due to climate change, correct? Fewer inches of snow fall, less water in the rivers to drink....no? Along with more and more industry that uses water....?

Washington State would be a great state to develop a cheap desalinization plant or two, for water....

Any bottle water companies should be banned at this point if it is as bad as you say....

When i was in massachusetts, my county sold off its municiple water to a foreign company....what a BUNCH OF CRAP with that.....

 

[Againsheila]

I think it will be more like what Roomy has said....she is considered a celebrity now....the money is flowing in from people's generosity....a nanny or two will solve the problem...nothing is unsolvable with this situation....i see it as no big deal...

last year we had a couple of pregnant women that had 7 babies at once through invitro, who also had other children at home, here in the united states, no one complained about these women? What's going on here? Why the outrage? The nanny at the hospital says the mother is a fabulous mother with all her babies...according to the article?

My main concern is that you all think that you should have a say in what this woman does, reproductively....

I see it as absolutely NONE of our business and will fight Universal health care TOOTH AND NAIL, if THIS is what it will be like when it comes in to play....ALL OF YOU deciding for me, what is appropriate and what is not, where it relates to my own body and my own health....

it surprises me ravi, that those that take the stance of abortion being acceptable because the woman should have the right, to privacy regarding her own reproductive choices, yet every pro choice person is now saying the OPPOSITE?

quite confusing...to say the least?

care

You misunderstand me. I have no wish to limit the amount of children someone has, but that doesn't mean I cannot conclude that there is something mentally wrong with this woman.

I also think that the way the religious right has elevated a fertilized egg into the equivelent of a living human being may have had something to do with her reluctance to destroy her fertilized eggs.

I think she is off her rocker as well....but it is STILL none of my business...

And we do not know everything that is going on with her and WE SHOULDN'T KNOW, again, it is none of our business....

There are so many what ifs, the Tower of Babel could be rebuilt with them....

Who paid the 100k for the fertility clinics and invitros? Insurance doesn't pay for that....

Who is this ONE FATHER DONOR for all of her children? Is he dead?
is he someone she knew and loved? If he donated his sperm freely for her to have children, is he responsible for their upkeep as well?

Did she order the doctor to implant her with ALL of her remaining frozen embryos at ONCE? Or did she want just one more child and the doctor do this all on his own as it appears was the case?

only the tooth Fairy knows!

care

Did you read any of the articles? One of them said she had the rest of her embryos implanted because she couldn't afford the storage fee. What are the laws about allowing adoption of embryos? I'm sure there are women out there that can't get pregnant that may have been willing to be implanted with her embryos.

It's time we as a society put a stop to this. Limit the number of embryos that can be implanted, for the good of the children.

 

[Care4all]

There are numerous ethical issues to discuss that wrap themselves around this one woman's experience. Why aren't we discussing them? Is this all about sitting back on our high horses and judging this one woman?

What about the ethics of the use of fertility drugs? In-vitro fertlilzation? Single parenthood?

What about the ethics of deciding as a global society to limit the birth of children--based on one nations middle class values?

There are a plethora of ethical issues wrapped up in one extremely unusual situation. How many births of octuplets have there been on the planet? How many studies have been done on quads, quintuplets, triplets and so on?

What if this woman were exceptionally wealthy and had a staff of nannies round the clock to care for these children? Would you all still sit in judgment of her on your high horses?

We know a few things--and we speculate and assume a tremendous amount. It is possible this woman is mentally ill. Should she be sterilized because she is mentally ill? Would that satisfy some of you? Should her fetuses have been aborted, all but one?

Bottom line--sadly--these threads are about nothing but bashing by people who feel superior. We have a number of complex issues that have been raised by this one woman's experience.

Does an individual family have the right to determine when and what circumstances to bring a child or children into the world.

All of you are acting as if this woman PLANNED to have eight children at once. Is that true? Wasn't her plan to have one more child?

How many of you think you ought to be able to control other people's family size?

How about some stranger coming up to you and telling YOU that you have no right to have any more children?

I've been told that more than once, including by my own mother who KNEW I'd had a tubal. When people find out both my kids are special needs, many of them ask how I could ever have brought another special needs kid into the world after the first one. The truth is, I didn't know my first was special needs when I got pregnant with my second. If I had, I might not have had my second. I do believe in being responsible when it comes to bearing children. Now if I can be responsible and refuse to try again, knowing that I could have another special needs kids, why do you think I have no right to judge a woman who KNOWS that she's going to bring special needs kids into the world?

This woman also has special needs kids in her first 6 children, do you really believe she should bring 8 more special needs kids into the world?

Sheila, again, it is none of our business, whether you chose to have a second child knowing the chances of a special needs child or not....this is not society's decision to make, it was yours to make and every circumstance is different.

 

[Care4all]

You misunderstand me. I have no wish to limit the amount of children someone has, but that doesn't mean I cannot conclude that there is something mentally wrong with this woman.

I also think that the way the religious right has elevated a fertilized egg into the equivelent of a living human being may have had something to do with her reluctance to destroy her fertilized eggs.

I think she is off her rocker as well....but it is STILL none of my business...

And we do not know everything that is going on with her and WE SHOULDN'T KNOW, again, it is none of our business....

There are so many what ifs, the Tower of Babel could be rebuilt with them....

Who paid the 100k for the fertility clinics and invitros? Insurance doesn't pay for that....

Who is this ONE FATHER DONOR for all of her children? Is he dead?
is he someone she knew and loved? If he donated his sperm freely for her to have children, is he responsible for their upkeep as well?

Did she order the doctor to implant her with ALL of her remaining frozen embryos at ONCE? Or did she want just one more child and the doctor do this all on his own as it appears was the case?

only the tooth Fairy knows!

care

Did you read any of the articles? One of them said she had the rest of her embryos implanted because she couldn't afford the storage fee. What are the laws about allowing adoption of embryos? I'm sure there are women out there that can't get pregnant that may have been willing to be implanted with her embryos.

It's time we as a society put a stop to this. Limit the number of embryos that can be implanted, for the good of the children.

I know I had said such in speculation, that this could be a possibility, but i do not believe the article definitively said such?

regardless, it is not my decision or your decision to make, it is hers, along with her doctor's.

And I stick by that.....!

care

 

[strollingbones]

Force our opinions on them? No.

Encourage them to do something so stupid by paying them to do so.
Not that either.





This woman is having eight babies at once.

The cost of keeping those premmies alive during their first year of life, will exceed your entire lifetime's income.

We are ALL paying for that, an Care, that is NUTS.



Sheesh indeed.

Care



One of the things she's apparently missing, CARE is a social conscience.



If she'd taking fertility pills, and she decides that she wants to bring 8 babies to term you know god damened well that she is going to demand and get help to keep them alive in their first year of life.

So it IS our busines, Care, in THIS KIND OF CASE.

REproductive freedom is NOT a suicide pact.

Editec, why do you think the gvt is paying for this instead of Insurance?

She wanted one more baby from what the articles say....the fertility doctor either implanted all 8 or maybe just 4 or five of them and they divided in to twins on their own....to end up being 8.....her not aborting the extra ones, is what it comes down to, and it appears that she did not want to choose which ones to kill and chose to keep them all, even though her life could be at risk....and by law, us women, have that choice....all of us do...even if it is a high risk pregnancy, where we could die, WE HAVE the final say of our own destiny and we have final say on whether to keep our child to be, or not...PERIOD.

all of her children BUT ONE is breathing on it's own, with absolutely NO SPECIAL preme CARE needed....Obviously, her body was meant to handle a load or litter such as this....it could have turned out much different, but IT DIDN'T.

Editec, this is such a slippery slope....next, you will determine that someone can't get the medical care for lung cancer, because gvt funds pays for part it....or not at all because the person smoked and gave the lung cancer to themselves!

care

then why are they staying in the hospital a month? i would say due to them being total premmies...which is determned by birth weight and lung development...i would love to know their apgar scores at birth and now..

 

[Care4all]

i would bet that premie twins or triplets stay in the hospital a month....or singularly prematurely born child would stay in the hospital a month as well, no?

Does she have medical insurance?