Health Features
Miracle births stoke debates over fertility treatment (News Feature)
By Andy Goldberg Feb 7, 2009, 2:26 GMT
Los Angeles - A single mother of six has octuplets in California. A 60-year-old Canadian gives birth to twins after going to India to have two embryos from another woman implanted in her womb.
While fertility treatments has been a life-changing blessing for millions of people, the 'miracle births' of recent weeks are fuelling long-standing debates about the ethical and practical challenges it poses.
On Friday, the California Medical Board said it had launched an investigation into how Nadya Suleman, 33, managed to be implanted with at least six embryos, because such high-order multiple pregnancies pose great dangers to both the mother and children.
The board will investigate whether there were any violations of medical standards by the so far unnamed fertility doctor who helped Suleman become pregnant with the octuplets born last month. Fertility experts have widely criticized the implantation on grounds of medical ethics, because it poses unnecessary dangers to the mother and babies.
Suleman's miracle delivery came just two days before another extreme case of the boundaries of fertility ethics.
Ranjit Hayer gave birth to twins after four decades of trying to conceive with her husband. After she was refused treatment last year in Canada because of her age, she flew to India for donor eggs.
Canada's health care system stops fertility treatments at age 50, citing the increased health risks for mothers, up to and including death.
'Medically, it's very risky for both the mother and the babies,' fertility expert Dr Cal Greene told Toronto's Globe and Mail. 'We don't consider it in the best interests of the child.'
Beyond medical ethics, both cases have exposed sharp social issues, too.
A chorus of critics have asked whether it is right to let one woman have 14 children, all by test-tube conception. Does it matter that she is unmarried, lives with her parents on disability income and has been described by her own mother as psychologically unstable?
In Hayer's case, is it right to pay Indian women a relative pittance for their eggs, and should the public-health system have to pay for the added costs of treating a 60-year-old mother?
In the initial excerpts of her first interview aired Friday. Suleman did little to put those questions to rest.
'I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up,' she said.
Asked what she felt she lacked, she replied: 'Feeling of self and identity. I didn't feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment. I felt powerless, and that gave me a sense of predictability. Reflecting back on my childhood, I know it wasn't functional. It was pretty, pretty dysfunctional, and whose isn't?'
Suleman claimed that she was being unfairly judged simply because she was a single mother.
'I feel I'm under the microscope because I chose this unconventional life,' said Suleman, who claimed she did what couples struggling to have children do all the time.
She acknowledged taking risks by having six embryos implanted - two of which split into identical twins, she claims.
'I wanted them all transferred. Those are my children,' she said. 'And that's what was available, and I used them. I took a risk. It's a gamble. It always is.'
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Put ehrlich+population into your favorite search engine...
Any questions?
While I was sympathetic at first, the more I read about this woman I'm starting to believe that she is either totally neurotic or a master scam artist! She justifies having 14 children, most out of wedlock; by using the standard party line ,'its MY body...,these are MY children...,'Uh..., excuse me? These kids are going to fed,clothed,housed,at the PUBLIC'S expense! If there ever was a case for eugenicism's 'sterilize all potentially defective parents' this could be it..., I hope that California's Social Services will keep an eye on her,in case she:
1) Decides to make MORE babies
2) Cash out by paid guest appearances, movie/book royalties,etc...,
4)If she & her kids are going to be provided for at gov't expense..., make sure that all royalties are utilized to reimburse the states' expenses for raising them!!
Caring for 14 children under age 8 is illegal without a license.
The only INNOCENTS in this whole sad story are those 8 children and their 6 siblings. With what we know at present, my belief is that all the children should be taken from the mother and adopted by people who deserve to have children; but then that would be if we lived in a perfect world. Loving children includes providing for them too which she doesn't seem to take into the equation. This gal has a lot of company though in thinking that someone else should pay to raise her children...it's called Welfare. So far it sounds like she has a good handle on how to 'milk the system.' (Worker's Comp should be embarrassed at this one yet again. Sounds like a legitimate lawsuit to me.)
I truly feel sorry for all 14 children...what chance do they have in life;
the cards are stacked against them to become productive human beings with the lousy example that they have for a mother! She is beyond SELFISH! It will be interesting to follow the story...she must have expected her parents to continue raising her children. Just hope the children will be treated the way they should be; INNOCENT and VICTIMS of a very selfish, unbalanced mother. Give them a chance in life by taking them away from her. I truly believe that is their only hope to grown up healthy and happy!
I was a single mom for about 3 1/2 yrs., when my three children were 20 months, 6 yrs. and 8 1/2 yrs. old. I chose to end my marriage because I knew it was best for myself and my children. I didn't have the blessing of having family around. Believe me, there were times when I felt completly overwhelmed. I was a young mother and it helped me to grow up and be responsible for myself and my children. We were dirt poor, lived week to week, but a real team! Worked long hours, and much of my income went to daycare for my daughter. Thinking of those years brings back great memories too; reading to them, lots of popcorn,
cards and Minopoly, etc. I know it also helped shape my children into the wonderful people they are today.
I feel that I am justified in my convictions because of my life experiences.
I would revolk the medical license today
if I was Medical Board for the State of California.
Letting that clearly mentally ill woman
go and have 8 kids is medical malpractice to say the lease.
Is California so dense that they can't see right from wrong?
page: 1
jillianFeb 7th, 2009 - 02:56:26
This 33 year old single woman is unemployed, has 6 fatherless children (one of whom has autism), lives with her bankrupt parents and decides that she wants another 8 fatherless children to fulfill her life. What a selfish and immature woman!!!
Who's going to pay for these 14 children, the bankrupt grandparents???? No, taxpayers like you and I.
Though public records show that Nadya Suleman was on the payroll at Metropolitan State Hospital until last year, it appears that she did little work (if any) after September 1999 due to a workman's compensation injury (back injury and psychiatric condition) in which she's received up to $165,000 in compensation. She filed an additional claim for worker’s compensation for a separate car accident in which she argued that this car accident wouldn’t have occurred had she not been going for medical treatment for the earlier worker’s comp. injury.
Apparently Nadya Suleman knows how to “work” the system and will have no trouble finding the funds to support her large family and stupid decisions for the next 18+ years.
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