Nadya Suleman, the California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets (conceived by IVF), and mother of six other children including twins (also conceived by IVF), has been put through the ringer by the national press this week since information that she is single, lives with her parents, collects food stamps and social security benefits, and unemployed has become public. Ann Curry ripped her a new one on Dateline NBC, Tim Rutten of the LA Times calls her story grotesque and calls her a "sad and disturbing serial mom." Suleman is guilty of grave irresponsibility, if anything, and that is not illegal.
Reproductive rights are about choice. This goes hand in hand with that rhetoric. If Suleman chooses, behind a veil of privacy, to act irresponsibly, then that is her right. As unbelievably narcissistic as her actions seem, she has made them and she has not broken any laws. To put the necessary laws in place would be to overhaul thirty-plus years of reproductive rights progress. I bet a story featuring a woman who underwent multiple abortions in a year would face much the same scrutiny. Except bringing eight children into the world to great expense (and on someone else’s dime) is, I would say, much more irresponsible, selfish and far-reaching in its effects. As Rutten points out:
When the Nadya Sulemans of the world say, as she has in interviews, that they undergo these extreme, invasive, unpleasant, uncertain and expensive medical procedures because they "want children," that isn't really the case. If what people want is children — and the incomparable experience of parenthood — there are tens of thousands of children in our country and perhaps millions more abroad waiting for adoption. Thousands of others in our country are waiting for foster care.
Rutten claims Suleman and others like her undergo these procedures to fulfill some sense of entitlement. But one can't help but wonder if perhaps Suleman was intrigued by the fame (and fortune?) showered upon other families for having similarly-sized broods (she claims she wanted only one more child, but had the doctor implant her with eight embryos). This would seem likely, since a website was just launched, featuring images of the barely post-fetal octuplets, where donations can be made for the family.
Here's a portion of the Ann Curry interview. Curry is tame in this installment:
