Off-Topic Blog like post TLDR
The “pro-life” stance weighs thin with me when you have upwards of a quad pregnancy.
The odds of upwards of four surviving are slim, and not having any with disabilities are slimmer. When I worked with disabled people, I worked with “twin” brothers, whose mother insisted on referring to them as “surviving triplets”-- one had been stillborn. One was blind, and could hear with hearing aids, but not normally, and SERIOUSLY needed signed language. He could walk, but his gait was a little odd, and he probably had either mild apraxia or CP. The other had severe CP, and was in a wheelchair, with intense physical therapy. At age three, he was just learning to use his electric chair, and also just learning to crawl with his therapy, a skill he would need if the chair ever failed. Ultimately it was hoped he would walk with crutches, maybe after surgery or Botox treatments (his type of disability is what Botox was invented for). He could see normally, and also wore hearing aids, but had much more gain through the aids than his brother.
When I was pregnant, I told my husband I would want to reduce above two. He read a couple of articles in medical journals, and totally agreed.
As far as “pro-life,” I had a friend who was pregnant with three naturally, one in one placenta, and two in another. One of the babies in the double placenta developed an infection, somehow, and died. The other was still alive, but a biopsy of the placenta showed it was toxic, and the second baby was doomed. To continue the pregnancy without interference meant dooming the currently safe fetus in it’s own, healthy placenta.
The mother (and I assume, really, both parents together) chose surgical removal of the infected placenta before it poisoned the whole uterine environment, because it was throwing off toxins as metabolites. It meant aborting the live fetus in the infected placenta, but it was doomed, because its placenta was dying.
This all happened just at the beginning of the second trimester, when healthy fetuses could no longer be aborted, but unhealthy ones could. The goal was always to save the singlet in the separate placenta. My friend needed to spend a month or so on bedrest, but carried the singlet to term.
She (the singlet) is a freshman in college now, on an academic scholarship, a real character, planning to major in chemistry, but minor in theater. She says she plans to spend her 20s trying to make it in acting, but be able to support herself doing something a lot better than waitressing while she tries, and if she can’t support herself by acting by the time she’s 30, she’s going to go to grad school and study pharmacology and become a researcher.
She’s a real character: plays guitar, and taught music in the religious school when she was still a high school senior, and was taking lot of college classes already-- finished high school with a lot of transfer credits; she may have entered college as a sophomore.
If her parents had “Let nature take it’s course,” she wouldn’t be here, and her mother probably would have ended up with a hysterectomy, so neither would her younger brother and sister.
FWIW, on the other side, I know quintuplets, aged 6, who are all physically healthy and mentally intact. But they are a little odd. They have very regimented lives, and seem to have trouble relaxing and just being kids. They also say some odd things from time to time-- it’s pretty obvious their grandparents are heavily involved in their upbringing, and from their influence, corporeal punishment is used, and frequently. I suspect that when you have five little ones, all the same age, it’s hard to take the time to communicate and reason at their level much, and so you have to resort to the quickest form of behavior modification available when you have a behavior that really must stop, NOW.
And FWIW, and OB will tell you that humans are not meant to have litters. high-order multiples, so much of the time, it’s effectively “always,” are the results of reproductive technology. The times that are not are so rare, all you can say about them is that they are a “non-zero event.”