So I finally found an article that has inspired me or riled me up enough to share my opinion/get the discussion going on not my other two sites. As many of you have heard by now a woman gave birth to octuplets and she already had 6 kids. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4413804/Mother-of-octuplets-had-all-her-14-children-by-IVF.html
According to the article, she's divorce, the ex-husband is not the father of any of the kids, all 14 kids were through invitro fertilization, and she is on welfare while living with her parents. I'd like to call into question the ethics of the doctor who implanted her. Apparently the donor sperm for all 14 kids is from a neighbor who's since married and asked her not to use it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090130/ap_on_re_us/octuplets
The yahoo article reports a friend says she's not on welfare. So perhaps she's not. But that came from a friend which is here say to me so is to be taken with a grain of salt. Either way she can't provide for them on her own without the assistance of her parents.
There are several ethical questions at play here of which whoever implanted her either has no ethical standards, or didn't bother to ask his patients one or two pertinent questions.
1. Shouldn't the non-anonymous donor have to sign off each time his donation is used? If the remaining embryos are not signed off on for her to use, then they have to both sign off on donation, elimination, or they will be frozen indefinitely. Or is this another situation where men don't have a say, they are just the poor schlubs dumb enough to go along for the ride?
2. Why are doctors implanting that many embryos at a time in one woman?
3. Why are they implanting anything when she is at risk for becoming a burden on society? ie she's already got 6 and she lives with her parents and has no husband to help care for them. At the very least, shouldn't it require her parents sign off that they will be financially responsible if she fails to be financially responsible herself?
What side of the ethics argument do you fall on? Do you care? If you were having IVF, how many embryos would you let the the doctor implant?
I leaves me to ponder, I wonder if her father had seen the 14 grandchildren in his future that he would be providing for, if he'd have just passed on having kids at all?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
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7 comments:
I live in California where this all takes place. There is a lot going around that may not be totally true. But what is true is that the cost for SOMEONE is going to be in the millions and for a state that is broke, this may set off a taxpayer revolt.
I've heard that the parents of the woman actually lost their home trying to support her, and now live in the two bedroom house with her and all those kids. This is a crazy story! How does one pay for the invitro in the first place? It's about 15K to have invitro done, and insurance doesn't cover it. I'm interested to see what the whole story reall is.
Yeah that's my question...I am under the impression that as a fertility doctor you can and would demand payment up front since most, if any, insurances don't even cover fertility. So where did she get the money to pay for it in the first place. Either way if you have 6 kids, you don't need fertility services in my opinion...especially if they aren't going to have a father...or perhaps this was against the will of the ex-hubby who didn't sign up for even more after the 6...
and Jan, I would like to know the truth from the not so true...either way if her parents are supporting her, I pity their choice to do so. ie. they gave her the money for fertility treatments...I'd defintitly be concerned about their sanity...this is nuts. and if I were a California tax payer, I'd want to be in the know. So it will be interesting to see what if anything comes of this...
This almost sounds like some weird aspect of Munchausen syndrome. This woman appears to be getting some type of affection and attention in being a baby factory. Kind of pathetic. I feel sorry for the babies when they are no longer babies.
I do too...maybe we should ask her opinion on the other post since she's a self proclaimed expert...
Thank you for your insightful and informative post. It is sad to think what the future may hold for these children. No matter what the days ahead bring, they will always be in an abnormal situation.
It looks like another big bill for the taxpayer to foot. This sort of thing almost makes me want to favor forced sterilization in cases like this.
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