You may have read of the lady in California who was expecting to give birth to 7 kids last week, but was surprised to have 8. Well, I finally read about who she is and am less than impressed.
[quote]How in the world does a woman with six children get a fertility doctor to help her have more — eight more?
An ethical debate erupted Friday after it was learned that the Southern California woman who gave birth to octuplets this week had six children already.
Large multiple births “are presented on TV shows as a `Brady Bunch’ moment. They’re not,” fumed Arthur Caplan, bioethics chairman at the University of Pennsylvania. He noted the serious and sometimes lethal complications and crushing medical costs that often come with high-multiple births. . .
the children’s grandmother, Angela Suleman, told The Associated Press her daughter resorted to in vitro fertilization because “her fallopian tubes are plugged up” and she had trouble conceiving.
She said her daughter, who is unmarried, conceived all her children that way and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager. . .
“It’s over now,” she said. “It has to be. It can’t go on any longer. She’s got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn’t want to get married. So she got the in vitro.”
. . . Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that the woman was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.
Dr. David Adamson, former president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, said he was bracing for some backlash against his specialty.
In 30 years of practice, “I have never provided fertility treatment to a woman with six children,” or ever heard of a similar case, said Adamson, director of Fertility Physicians of Northern California. . .
The mother of the octuplets lives with her parents in a modest, single-story home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb . . .
Court records show Angela Suleman [the grandmother] filed for bankruptcy last March, but after she failed to make required payments and appear at a creditors’ meeting, the case was dismissed. She reported liabilities of $981,371, mostly money owed on two houses she owns in Whittier. . .[/quote]