Octuplet Mom: How ethical are fertility treatments for someone with 6 kids?

Great Debates
41

A very devout man was trapped in his house by rising flood waters. A neighbor paddled by in a canoe and called out to see if he needed help.

“No,” the man yelled, “I’m fine. God will protect me!”

The waters rose higher. The man was forced to retreat to the second floor of his house. A police motorboat came by. The policeman shouted to him to get in the boat so he could be evacuated.

“No,” the man yelled, “God will protect me!”

The waters rose higher. The man climbed up on his roof, clinging to the chimney so he wouldn’t be swept into the swirling waters. A rescue helicopter flew overhead. The crew lowered a rope, but the man ignored it.

“God will protect me!” he shouted.

The waters rose higher and the man was swept away and drowned.

We he arrived at the gates of Heaven he was furious.

“God,” he cried, “I was a good Christian my whole life! Why did you forsake me?”

God looked down at him. “I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter! What more did you want?”

42

If she took fertility drugs on her own and did to this to herself she’s a complete idiot.

If a doctor did this to her he’s a very bad doctor.

She has very proven recent fertility. Her choices were IUI or IVF.

In both procedures a doctor gives a woman drugs and monitors the number of follicles she develops via ultrasound. Follicles are potential eggs. Ideally for an IUI you want to see three or four follicles. Then you place the sperm in the uterus.

With IVF you’re directly removing the eggs and fertilizing them outside the body. Then you can place them back in.

A responsible doctor will do one of two things if he sees you have large numbers of follicles in an IUI cycle. He will either convert the cycle to an IVF so that you don’t wind up with higher order multiples and only put back two or three eggs. Or he will cancel the cycle and tell you not to attempt to conceive that month at all.

If I had to guess I’d think this woman either took the drugs herself on her own or was doing an IUI and ignored rational medical advice to cancel or upgrade to IVF. Very few doctors will put back many eggs in a woman with such obvious fertility.

The risks of higher order multiples is just too great.

So I vote she’s an unethical loon with serious mental issues. Or she found a really creepy doctor just as loony.

43

You know how sometimes you tip the vending machine because it ate your quarter, and instead of one packet of M&Ms you get five M&Ms, some beef jerky, a packet of dry-roasted peanuts, a Mounds bar, and some Raisinettes?

44

The whole, “vagina, clown car” meme comes to mind. Jesus.

I think I’m gonna be sick. Those poor kids-what the fuck, lady? Your father is going back to fucking IRAQ, a fucking war zone, to support YOU, your parents declare bankcrupcy, just because you want an entire baseball team? What the HELL?

And what about the sperm doner? Will he ever found out that he was the one involved with the whole thing? :frowning:

45

I’m not a big fan of the “you should only have kids if you have (insert approximate income level of whoever is saying it)” philosophy.

Our middle-class lifestyle is a historical blink of the eye. Most of humanity has been raised by dirt-poor teenagers raising dozens of kids in mud huts and one-room shacks. I think it’s kind of rediculous that now, all of the sudden, you need a minivan, a five bedroom house, a Baby Gap wardrobe and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets in order to “ethically” have children. By our own standards, our grandparent’s households were positively abusive.

Babies really don’t need to cost that much. Travel anywhere and you’ll see babies that don’t need diapers, don’t need pre-packaged baby food, don’t need baby monitors or their own bathrooms or whatever. It’s more work, but it’s possible. Anyway, what a kid needs most of all is love, food, shelter, clothes, and health care. All of this (besides the health care) can be accomplished in all but the poorest places. If billions of people in the developing world can raise happy children, I promise that just about anyone in an American suburb can.

I agree this lady is probably nuts.

But reproduction is one of the most basic parts of our humanity, and I just don’t think it should be under other’s controls and really I don’t think it should be under other people’s judgment, either. At least, without personally knowing the parents. There are many amazing unwed, teenage, broke, whatever parents who do a great job raising kids. And there are millions of “healthy” well-off families that fuck their kids up major.

I’ve known a huge variety of families- including polygamous families with 40+ kids. In all cases it was love, not numbers, that decided if the kids turned out well-adjusted. Humans are amazing adaptable creatures, and are perfectly capable of thriving in situations that are different than the “house in the suburbs” model.

Not saying this particular situation is going to turn out well, but you never know. Anyway, we only get one life and we ought to be able to do what we choose with it. If this situation does turn out to be abusive to the kids, by all means do something. But we don’t even know this lady’s name, much less how good of a mother she is. It’s not our place to judge before anything has even happened.

46

Have you ever heard of mortality rates?

47

I kind of want to see babies that don’t need diapers. And, you know, whose poop doesn’t fall everywhere.

48

Yes, we know, even sven, everything is all flowers and sunshine in the developing world and we’re a bunch of spoiled wimps who can’t even tie our shoelaces.

Maybe perhaps its the fact that again, her parents lost their home to take care of her and her kids, her father is going into Iraq, putting himself in harms’ way, and she has no planned way to support these kids. THAT, to me, is selfish.

Not every culture is the same-there’s a lot here that we do that your saints in the developing world probably wouldn’t be able to handle, either.

49

Oh my god, I’ve always been very skeptical of those people who say, “I’m usually pro______, BUT…”

I have just become such a person.

I am usually violently in favor of reproductive freedom. You want 15 kids, and can afford them? Go right ahead. You don’t want any and need an abortion? Your choice. Fertility treatments? None for me, thanks, but knock yourself out.

BUT…

This is ridiculous. This woman has to be crazy. Her doctor is nuts.

If you already have 6 kids, you obviously do not need fertility treatments.

If you are not married/partnered, and have six kids, you really don’t need fertility treatments.

I used to have a friend who had 6 kids under the age of 7, which she accomplished by having a singleton, then twins two years later, then triplets 18 months later, with no fertility treatments required. (Triplets followed by tubal ligation.) And I will say, it’s one thing to have 6 kids who are spread out, and in the normal course of things you could have a couple of older ones who could help out with the younger ones. It is quite something else to have 6 kids who all need to be in car seats and pretty much all need to be put there simultaneously.

The other thing is that kids need a certain amount of attention. Granted that there is a 7-year-old, who is probably fairly advanced at having younger siblings, but babies still need tons of attention, and these poor little things are going to get less attention than they would in a day-care center!

When this story first broke I was also a bit concerned about the violation of this woman’s privacy. The media really seemed to be stalking her. But now it seems like we probably do have the right to know, since my guess is it’s tax dollars that are keeping those babies in NICU.

Also, the father/grandfather is an idiot. You do not say, “You will never know where our other house is” to reporters, unless you want them to track you down.

50

I am going to take a wild guess that the babies that don’t need diapers live around dogs.

Hmm, that was probably TMI, right?

51

Actually, I wonder if the father (grandfather) isn’t going to Iraq to get away from the house full of fourteen children, toddlers, and infants.

:smack:

52

Just to restate what I just said in the other thread about octuplets, I don’t think a doctor has any business deciding how large his patient’s family should or should not be, or how many children they can afford to raise. I’m all for limiting the number of embryos the doctor will implant at one time because of the risks to mother and babies in superlarge pregnancies, and I’m ok with requiring psych evaluations (particularly in a case that seems as “off” as this one), but the doctor should not be required or allowed to tell people that they may not have any more children.

53

Bullshit. Pharmacists can refuse to dispense birth control and doctors can refuse to prescribe it because it is offensive to their personal diety and/or psychosis. By the same reasoning, I think a doctor can refuse to give fertility treatments based on his or her math and/or personal finance skills.

54

I get a little sensitive about these discussions because many Dopes have implied that my own birth and childhood should not have happened and were inherently abusive. But I challenge anyone to find a mother as loving, ready and responsible as my (teenage, single, welfare) mom. I honestly wouldn’t trade having a young, energetic mom, the kid-filled and neighborly housing project where I grew up, or the lessons I learned about resourcefulness for a more materially comfortable childhood. And I don’t think it is anyone else’s business to theorize how my childhood should have been.

Anyway, that many kids at once is over the top, but we know nothing about these people’s lives and it’s pretty stupid to get on our moral high horses at this point.

Diapers are not standard equipment on babies in China. Mothers (or more often, grandmothers) are very attuned to their baby’s rhythms and are able to train them to go over a toilet or a basin from a very, very early age. Older babies wear the characteristic “split pants”, which sometimes leads to more baby pee on the sidewalk than most of us would like. But it works for them.

55

IMO, Pharmacists and doctors should not be allowed to refuse to prescribe birth control on ethical grounds either. They should take a job that doesn’t require them to be in situations where they become a party to other people’s birth control choices. So my opinion is totally consistant on this topic across the board.

Then there’s the fact that this is far more subjective than the simple “Birth control is bad” credo. How many children is too many? How much money is enough? Do people have to start bringing their complete financial records with them to the specialist’s office to prove they can afford more children? Will they be required to take income protection insurance in case of unexpected ill health or job loss? And if the doctor has a formula that tells him they can afford one more child but not two, is he obligated to implant only a single embryo, reducing the chances of a successful IVF cycle and thereby possibly increasing the costs of IVF to his patients?

How do you factor in children from previous relationships - do you deny fertility treatment to a woman who has no children because her partner had several with his first wife?

If fertility specialists are going to become the “gatekeepers”, deciding who can have children based on their income then ought they also assess the family’s suitability to raise a child? As far as I’m aware, background checks are not part of the IVF process but if you can be too poor to raise a child then perhaps you can be too morally deficient to raise a child too. Should people with extensive criminal backgrounds but who meet the income requirements have more right to have a child than decent law-abiding people who fall just short?

My opinion is that the only interest my fertility specialist should have in my finances is whether or not I can pay his bill. Outside of that, it’s none of his business. He should have the right to refer me to someone else if he doesn’t feel comfortable treating me, but he should not require me to prove that I can afford to raise a child before he will give me treatment.

56

I think the reasoning for it: Six kids = lots of bills and headaches, but 14 = Oprah and Ty Pennington taking care of you and your kids for the rest of your life (house, college paid for, etc)

They say she is a professional student, but I am not sure she took any economics classes.

57

I think hypocrite would be closer if their oath is to be taken seriously. The doctor(s) should be prosecuted for endangering the lives of the children and be forced to pay for what will certainly be an expensive hospital stay for the premies. I would love to see a review board look over their licenses.

There is no way this woman can afford this so the state (us) will have to pick up the tab. She should have to work off the debt but the only job she’s qualified for would be as a prostitute for stupid people (she’s a fucking moron).

This is one of those 3 foot candle stories.

58

Why on earth any one would agree to plant even one embryo in a woman who was single and had 6 other children must have no ethics at all.

She already lives in a small house with her parents and why they didn’t talk her out of it is a point to ponder!

Monavis

59

When a woman already has 6 children under the age of 6 they should ask her if she is thinking of the children she may be bringing in the world, is what she is doing fair to the children, and does she expect others to support them. It is not a natural way to concieve and yes, a doctor should not provide her with children under her circumstance.

Since she needed a fertility doctor to decide if she could or should have children under these circumstances then Yes, he should refuse on ethical grounds. He should keep the welfare of the children in mind. If it was a natural conception then that would be another story.

60

I agree. The woman needed counselling, not 8 more kids!