Health News
US octuplet mum already had six - refused embryo reduction (Roundup)
Jan 30, 2009, 14:48 GMT
Los Angeles - The mother of octuplets born Monday in California already had six children under the age of seven, but declined to abort some of the eight foetuses, her mother said in a Los Angeles Times interview Friday.
The mother has not been officially named. But grandmother Angela Suleman said the woman's refusal to undergo a so-called reduction was taken on moral grounds. 'What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed,' Suleman said. 'That is a very painful thing.'
Suleman acknowledged that raising 14 children would be difficult, especially since the father is due to return to Iraq shortly where he serves as a military contractor.
The mother, aged 33, was offered a selective abortion, Dr Harold Henry at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Centre said. The woman had consulted the doctors in her 12th week of pregnancy.
News that the mother already had six young children before giving birth to the octuplets is likely to increase the controversy surrounding the use of fertility treatments, especially the implanting of multiple embryos which can lead to high risk pregnancies and health problems for the babies, who are usually born prematurely.
'When we see something like this in the general fertility world, it gives us the heebie-jeebies,' Michael Tucker, a clinical embryologist in Atlanta and a leading researcher in infertility treatment, told the newspaper. Tucker added that in his opinion, 'if a medical practitioner had anything to do with it, there's some degree of inappropriate medical therapy there.'
The six boys and two girls were delivered within five minutes of each other by Caesarean section Monday morning. The delivery surprised doctors who had been expecting 'only' seven babies.
Two of the newborns who had initially been put on ventilators, were now breathing on their own.
The mother is the second person ever to have delivered a set of living octuplets. The last octuplets known to have survived birth were born in Houston in 1998. One of the babies died one week later.
On Wednesday, the mother could see her babies for the first time in their incubators at the intensive care ward. According to People magazine, she was not allowed to hold her babies yet, but watched them sleeping.
The babies weighed in at between 880 grams and 1.47 kilograms each. All eight will spend about two months in an incubator, the hospital said, but the mother, who plans to breastfeed all her children, will be able to leave hospital in one week.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Who is paying for the medical bills? Or is this just a scam to make money off the California nanny state?
I don't question her not wanting to 'abort' the babies once they were growing normally, but why in the world would someone with 6 children (under 7!) want to be implanted with multiple fertilized eggs in the first place? And what doctor in his right mind would go along with such a plan? That's the part that makes me shake my head.
Perhaps she wanted her own TV reality show: Fourteen & Counting!
And today there are 8 more orphans somewhere in the world who could use parents and a good home.
Something tells me we'll hear how 'God' had something to do with their decision and how 'blessed' they are.
cosign everything John61254 posted.
when you already have 6? - I don't get it, especially now.
This makes me sick! Who's paying for all this? I bet this woman's angling for a reality show.
Six children under the age of seven wasn't enough?
Isn't there some kind of screening that is required for fertility intervention? It doesn't seem that she needed fertility help in the first place.
Maybe her intention WAS to have a litter.
This seems unfair above all to the children. Can you imagine the level of chaos and need?
Is this some twisted form of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome?
Did I miss something? I don't see anywhere in the article that says that she used fertility drugs.
Did I miss something? I don't see anywhere in the article that says that she used fertility drugs.
Let her church pick up the hospital bill!
Collecting babies is the new hording.
this woman must be religious and mentally ill.
does religion make people stupid?
Idiots.
A marvel in reproduction and a marvel in stupidity all at the same time! Wait, that's not impressive...those tend to go hand in hand pretty often. How wealthy is she (and this contractor husband of hers) that this makes financial sense? Sounds like yet another system abuser, except in this case she gets undeserved props and publicity for a purely selfish and irresponsible act.
i would like to know how a family with obviously only i parent working could afford to take on this responsibility, or are the americam taxpayers somehow paying for this? the doctors are idiots for allowing this to happen,now i feel like i will be paying for this burden, along with my supporting the illiegals, welfare lifers and everyone else that does not and has not paid taxes, i am tired of handing out money to people that will not help themselves( see Africa)in time we will see how this bill was paid and by whom, i have a feeling it is us the working class tax paying citizens of this christian country.is this the spread the wealth i have been hearing about. enough of this crap as there are far more important things to worry about.
Most of you might consider that everyone doesn't look at life the way you do. Imagine a woman wanting to allow all eight of her babies to be born rather than aborted, and she is the one you are calling wierd? I suppose if she had determined that killing a few of them would be the socially or politically correct thing to do, then you would be applauding? I think it scares many people to know that there are still absolute truths that clash with their own post modern ideas packaged as a 'new' morality. And yes, absolute truths comes from God Himself, and He's not asking our opinions.
This makes me sick. There are enough mouths in this world to feed and this woman felt the need to bring in 14 more! This is pure ignorance and selfishness at it's best.
Bill Cosby used to say 'My wife and I have five children. The reason we have five children is because we do not want six.' I think Mr. Cosby is a wise man.
What will 14... no, 16 value meals at a fast food place cost? Will the parents be able to pay off the first 6 sets of orthodontics before the next 8 come around?
College now is approx. $18k/yr/person at public institutions ($72k for 4 yrs). At (conservative) %6 inflation over 18 years, that makes more than $225,000 per child for a 4-yr degree. For all 14 at that rate, college will cost over $3.2 million.
I hope military pay and benefits are better than I've heard.
On the plus side, only having 2 birthdays to remember for over a dozen people will make life a little easier.
Good luck, parents.
Is she trying to compete with that one family who has 18 children? Personally I have no problem with people having many children ... as long as they can afford them without any government's or some organization's assitance. Other than that this is just irresponsible.
I read someplace that the doctors who implanted the eggs said it was not their place to judge. Not if they want money. I think ethics need to be reviewed and some licenses need to be suspended. This is crazy. I'd also like to know who is paying for this, and how they plan to continue paying for all of this. None of my money should go to it.
Reality shows are getting crazy these days also and I hope they all disappear soon. The Duggers are a bad example adn shouldn't have a show either...John & Kate - who cares.
You people are not responsible and you encourage other people to be as irresponsible as you.
What a pathetic bunch you are - criticizing the woman for not aborting her babies. Where would we be today if your moms had aborted you? Oh - wait a minute...
I love how people think they know what's best for other people and families, especially when they complain about others 'intruding' on their rights and not being able to do whatever they please. Also, how many selfish couples do you see that decide not to have kids so they can live a life of ease and luxury? Society is so backwards
Don't condemn people because their priorities are different than all the social engineers out there.
This woman's sense of entitlement makes me want to puke. What about her moral stance on the earth's precious dwindling resources? There's obviously no regard for that. What a selfish woman, whether she sees it or not. Imagine if those medical resources that she sucked up like a vacuum could have gone to another woman trying desperately to conceive just one child. I knew when I first heard this story it had to be the case of some crazy right wing religious zealot. I'm sorry, but if God had intended her to have 8 children at once she wouldn't have needed fertility treatments. I know God's in heaven shaking his head at all the deranged stuff people do in 'his' name. I can't help but think the father works in Iraq to get the heck away from that insanity. Or maybe he should be happy, now they have enough people in their family for their own personal sports team.
I'm with the last poster, get that woman spayed.
I think there will be some sort of back lash now that we know she's got so many young children at home. Those freebies that she wanted will dry up.
I feel for the children.
the commenters who are upset about abotion comments are missing the issue....why did she go throughIVF in the 1st place when she had 6 babies already and a single mom? she is clearly nuts.
I wonder why a woman with 6 children would choose to have multiple embryos implanted. If the family is self sustaining then I don't feel a need to even have an opinion. If they are not, then this is absurd.
there most be something wrong with her thinking mode what kind of future is she hoping for her family well any one coul have a child but to be a parent it does takes some thinking.
Who cares why she wanted more kids? Who are all of you to tell someone when they've had enough? I know this is really hard to believe, but there are actually people out there who have a real heart for raising children. I'm not one of those people, but just maybe this woman is.
For those who assume that someone else is picking up the tab for the birth, you evidently have a hard time putting two and two together. The assumption is that she had a fertility specialist's help in conceiving the kids, she consulted with doctors about having seven of them in her twelfth week (a regular maternity checkup), AND her husband is a contractor for the government. With all of that in mind along with the fact that she gave birth at Kaiser Permanente, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that she has Kaiser health insurance which covers all costs of delivery and vaccinations, checkups, etc. until a child is two years old. Even IF she didn't have health insurance, you can bet that companies that cater to infants (Gerber, Huggies, and so forth) are going to crawl all over each other to pay any medical bills so they can be identified with the octuplets.
For those who seem to think that deciding which babies to kill before they are born is as morally neutral as realizing that you picked up too many apples at the store and deciding to put a few back in the pile, shame on you. By the way, how would you decide that? 'Hey doc, just wipe out the first two you see.' Whatever.
If something that any of you love and did made it to national news and sparked a bunch of discussion from people who obviously don't share your same passion about how stupid your decision was, I wonder how long it would take for you to start to complain that people have no right to judge you.
Hypocrites.
It's called the need to breed. And when you mix it with religion and fertility drugs, you get 14 kids.
I don't think anyone is condemning this woman for not having aborted some of the kids, people are more aghast that she used fertility drugs to become pregnant in the first place - after already spitting out 6 kids.
This family is ridiculous. How can these parents give proper attention to 14 kids? Yes, maybe they will have clothes and food, but the parental attention needed will be lacking.
I don’t buy it, 6 in and 8 to go. Something sound fix it around here! Experiment with new fertility drugs perhaps. Well, no doubt our tax dollars will pay for it. I started to get used to it.
The issue here isn't abortion. it is fertility.
If you are willing to play God by manipulating your body to have babies through artificial means means, then why stop when the experiment has gotten out of hand?
If you accept God's will for a pregnancy, how about accepting God's will when you can't conceive?
Spaceship Earth is in peril for one simple reason, to damn many human animals and we have irresponsible doctors and (place your own adjective here) adding to the problem and at what cost? Forty six doctors and attendants to deliver the preterm infants and California has a budget problem; apparently no problem as I am certain their health insurance and bank accounts will easily defray the hundreds of thousands or more of dollars this lunacy will cost; sure enough.
The woman knew that the husband was going to Iraq. Doctors have already admitted the fertility drugs; when she already had six kids. Hopefully, the husband has good insurance with the contractor. This woman averages a baby per year until now. Unless, you have the means to support this large family; then why? Fertility doctors should not allowed to place multiple eggs, when the woman already has six kids. Having babies must be a source of security!
She's trying to put the Duggar family in their place!
According to cbsnews, they weren't responsible enough to avoid bankruptcy and abandon their home - a year and a half ago!.. But they are responsible enough to raise 14 small children?
Maybe she wants to start a band like the partridge family only with a brass horn section as well.
For those of you defending her right to NOT have an abortion, you don't get it. None of the posts are suggesting she should have been forced to have an abortion. I think everyone is questioning why a woman with six children should have been allowed a multi-embryo impant procedure. I certainly agree.
For those of you who think there will be no financial burden on us as taxpayers, you don't get it either. Whatever insurance they have is either sponsored by the husband's employer or the military. Ultimately we pay for that. In the case of the employer, higher premiums mean they have to charge more for their goods or services, and those higher costs are passed on to the taxpayer. In the case of the military, that is an easier pass-through since your taxes directly subsidize military benefits.
I'm willing to bet that with one income and 14 kids they are probably eligible for state support (welfare or food stamps). We pay for that, too.
Finally, now that there are 8 more orphans in foster care today, we pay for that, too.
I don't usually post comments to news stories but this one has me outraged.
Skatermom:
No, I didn't miss the point. The really interesting point is that a bunch of posters here would rather see the woman abort the kids, or get her spayed. Social engineers, indeed, and precious dwindling resources my a**.
I agree that it was a strange choice she made to have fertility treatments, and showed bad judgment to have so many more kids. But 'have her spayed'?
I wonder how many abortion advocates are vegetarians?
Why so much criticism? Last time I checked America was still a free country. You should respect her for standing by her moral grounds.
Why is everyone so angry about this? It is her choice not yours. I'm pretty sure her husband who works as a contractor in Iraq makes enough money to pay the bills.
What kind of doctor allows a woman with a litter to have another one. How hypocritical is it to say aborting some of those would have been wrong, but having fertility drugs to have a litter is not wrong. How is it moral to raise 14 children, 8 of them of the same age.
Sick.
Who are all of you to question her choice to have more children and her use of fertility treatment. Maybe she has difficulty having children naturally and decided she wanted another child and ended up pregnant with multiple. I commend her for not 'selectively reducing', also known as ABORTING, any of the children. Also, I didn't read anywhere in the article that said or insinuated that the woman was looking for a tv show or asking for government assistance. She's actually trying to keep her name private, so why don't all of you that suggested any of above mentioned motives for having these children, get a life and mind your own business.
Strange how individual rights and 'privacy' rule supreme when one is deciding to abort a child or pursue a divorce that will cause untold emotional distress to children, yet when a married couple has an unusual amount of children at once they are not praised for due exercise of their privacy! You who are calling this a 'litter' should reconsider what this does to any premise of evenhandedness you would claim under law for the excercise of private freedoms, and how thinly veiled is the pretense of plurality that cloaks your selective judgments. Were there fertility drugs? I have not read that yet reported except as an assumption. To help the world's hungry and fatherless, let us not condemn those who take responsibility for their own children, but rather, sacrifice our own comforts to serve the poor in quietness.
Wow, they applied for bankruptcy 18 months ago and now 14 kids. That’s perfection for family planning.
By the way Eric, thanks to people like you, thousands get food stamps while snoring on their bed all day long. Viva the free thinkers!!
Selective abortion is murder! All of you Obamaites shouldn't be condemming this family. You should rejoice. He has promised that all of us will be taken care of by the government. Every child born to a single mother in the ghettos of our cities deserves to have the rest of us pay to support her and her endless chain of children. I don't see why this is any different.
It was highly irrespoonsible of any medical provider to give fertility drugs to a woman with 6 living children. This is not God, this is man's doing, as he often lets us do stupid things in the name of science. I am pleased to hear there is a father in the equation, I was afraid she was a baby daddy type situation. Daddy's income as a military contractor should have ends meeting.......and wow I am thinking about the child tax credit they get to claim on their taxes, it kinda gets me choked up.....
'Wow, they applied for bankruptcy 18 months'
It never said anything about bankruptcy!
No doubt God made her do this. since they filed for bankrupcy, we can assume that tax payers will pick this litter up and raise it in the name of the state. we spay dogs and cats because of overpopulation and no room for adoption. sounds like humans should be next. this is has to be a religious plot.
Strange how individual rights and 'privacy' rule supreme when one is deciding to abort a child or pursue a divorce that will cause untold emotional distress to children, yet when a married couple has an unusual amount of children at once they are not praised for due exercise of their privacy! You who are calling this a 'litter' should reconsider what this does to any premise of evenhandedness you would claim under law for the excercise of private freedoms, and how thinly veiled is the pretense of plurality that cloaks your selective judgments.
Kaiser Permanente, the breeders choice. They'll have free ER care on your dollar. Maybe when they reach 30 they will each have 14 kids too, and further perpetuate the diversity of this country. Insanity
Check the news out for a complete note, including bankruptcy. You should be more aware of your surroundings.
why can't we just experience the wonderment with the miracle of life and the joy these beautiful new lives will bring to each other and the extraordinary way in which they came into this world. how precious they must be to their parents who take this responsibility in the name of love, unselfishly, against odds that we all face and should want to help each other through.
It is her issue long as those 8 children do not have to suckle on the taxpayers' breasts like their Wall Streeet cousins
Oh enough with your pizzle about the injustice towards this couple for deciding to have another litter of 8 children , while already having 6 children. It's a reassurance to know that they have filed for bankruptcy so that the rest of us can pay to feed , cloth and educate their children. This is NOT so miracle from 'God' where the woman just happened to have octuplets out of the blue. It IS the result of fertility clinics and the vast sums of money the parents spent to have 8 zygotes willingly and purposely implanted in her body. It's unethical on the part of the medical community that participated in this and unethical and disgusting on the part of the parents who are in the poorhouse. Instead of having a litter of 8 more, why not just adopt a child who needs a loving home and family.
Where has it been writen this women has a husband. From what I read her father & mother are the persons who is living with her and her children. When the grandfather is bragging about having a big home somewhere no one will find out about, is it because it is hid from the IRS because he claimed bankruptcy? I hope it worth is enough to repay for all the hospital bills in the past and future. I would love to have stayed home and raise my family. I guess I should haved let the hard working taxpayers be responsible for my family. NOT! By the way I am a single mother of three grown children, I worked for our upkeep, and we went hungry many, mnay, many times.
Look, it was her 'Choice'. Remember 'Choice'? While I may not have made the same choices, they weren't mine to make. They were hers and hers alone. That was the whole basis behind Roe v. Wade, wasn't it?
She refused to kill her babies and now she's a bad person?
Who are you or I to decide how many kids she can have? Would you be offended if I came to your house and said 'You have too many children already. Your wife must have an abortion.'? They do that in communist China.
Think about it, Comrades...
You know what? Who cares? Who cares that some poor person has 14 kids. I don't care that our tax dollars will go to pay to keep them alive. I do care that billions of our tax dollars go to bank executives who already have more money than they know what to do with. I do care that billions of our tax dollars are wasted every week on an unnecessary war and unnecessary war contracts. Why are we so quick to hate on poor people and the bad decisions of poor people?
I guess the parents of the 14 kids expect the rest of society to pay for their over indulgence.
Medical, education, etc etc.
Mentallly Deranged
TOTALLY DISGUSTING. I'd have the doctors who provided this fertility procedure to this selfish nit-wit in jail. And....I'd make them pay for whatever financial help this piece of baggage is going to require. Why should the tax payers be yet again burdened with paying for the totally insane, selfish, short sighted decisions made by morons like this woman and her doctors??? Time is long overdue when the public/taxpayers get to have a say in the reproductive rights of this level of irresponsible society. We are forced to pay for it all...yet have no say whatsoever in the decisions these iidiots make. I'm FED UP. Let this woman and her kids starve and jail the doctors who made it all possible. Enough is enough.
I have no issue with her decision NOT to abort any of the fetuses. But if we find out that her family is on some type of state or federal financial aid, I will really be pi&&ed. What doctor and what fertility clinic can allow this to happen in good conscience. And Dad is off in the military. I wonder what these kids will say about their level of care in about 10 years. If Dad is stationed outside the US, I bet he sees lots of kids being raised without parents, in poverty and in dire need. Why don't they just adopt 8 of those kids?
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!
I started to getting annoy for those who blame us as “babies killer” to make their point. They think we are stupid enough to dismiss the fact this women deliberately let the irresponsible doctors to implant multiples embryos in her body, with 6 kids already waiting at home in first place! Not to mention a bankruptcy over her shoulder 18 months ago. Not to mention a father with a job overseas –very handy indeed -. It’s her choice wrote someone else. It’s matter of freedom that’s for sure. Well, no doubt her choice will help to raise the California economic deficit. Her freedom will let her to choice for another 10 babies? Perhaps, more. That’s why America is in trouble right now. We earn $10.00 and spend $11.00 right away. Eventually, something have to turn wrong. We don’t have to be totalitarian as China. Moderation is a good thing.
i wonder if the defenders of this woman would also extend those same personal choice rights to same sex marriage. this isn't some miracle from God. the only miracle here is going to be if she can remember all of her kids names.
let these idiot parents try to raise 14 kids. actions have consequences. and have a child services & welfare representative drop in on them at least twice a week to look for signs of neglect. if this was someone running a puppy mill you know what the state would do. i think these babies deserve at least that much protection.
Stupid is as stupid does.
All the greedy irresponsible fertility doctors are swarming on to the airwaves to protect their turf and defend fertility treatments. Fertility treatments have flown under the radar and the doctors have been getting away with a lot. More regulation and transparency is needed in this dangerous field.
Fertility treatments are very dangerous, and the doctors keep the dangers under wraps because there is so much money at stake.
This is a BIG MONEY BUSINESS, not a responsible medical field.
There is so much negligence and exploitation in this field, it is grotesque. Women are being medically damaged, people are being ripped off (these treatments are insanely expensive and people will sell their right arm to pay for it.)
The doctors do NOT properly monitor patients. They take on too many patients because they are greedy and do NOT give proper care and attention to each patient (unless they're a celebrity.) Fertility doctors are an arrogant bunch who treat patients poorly and behave as though the patient should kiss their ring and never question them.
Sometimes the negligent monitoring results in extreme births, sometimes it results in failed results (which of course the docs blame on the patient), and sometimes it results in the patient being seriously medically damaged.
If you have had a failed fertility treatment, go back and question the records. Was proper monitoring done, are there proper records, is the doctor a BOARD CERTIFIED REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGIST or just a self-promoting gynecologist? You'd be surprised how many 'respected' fertility docs are not even board certified and properly trained in the field.
and she intends to breastfeed them all! how will it be possible? I try my best with my single 5 months old, but every 2 to 3 hours feeding is not thet easy. There is some need of psychiatric evaluation here!
Although I disagree with this woman having so many children, I also disagree with a million other things people all over our country do. It is however their choice. If we are going to stop women from having the choice to have as many children as they want because it is a burden on our economic system, then we must also limit how much obese people eat because they too are a burden on our economic system. It appears that many of the posters on here think that by taking away peoples choices and regulating what they can and can not do will somehow magically solve the ailments of society. It goes much deeper than that. I propose we take away welfare systems all together and you will see that the population will become very creative in how they solve their problems. Americans are very smart when they aren't being propped up by these wasteful programs.
for those that would take away the choices of these individuals there is a place called China you could move to where all your wishes will come true.
My heart breaks for those poor couples in China (who can only have one child) listening to this on the news. She had SIX children and that was not enough for her! Wow. But nevertheless, indeed her 'choice' to have more and even though I don't understand or approve of that choice, I acknowledge that it is a wonderfully free society we live in that enables her to make that choice. But what's with the medical 'professionals' who implanted at least EIGHT embryos?! Insanely irresponsible. No, I don't want to legislate that we can only have one or two or three or however many children. If a family can really provide for and love a large number of children, that's fine! (Although personally I wish they would adopt...) But infertility treatments?! That should be for people who truly NEED help conceiving a child. Come on. And NEVER should that many embryos be implanted at one time. Ridiculous. I agree with the writer who described these fertility clinics as MONEY-MAKING BUSINESSES. Those doctors apparently care more about profits than ethics.
The religious right and other cult type groups are a very dangerous direction to go as is apparent in history. Hopefully this will shine some light on this problem that of as now we don't seem to want to go there. One religious zealot is no different then another and as a industrial country we should be passed this train of thinking by now. We seem to be scared of intellectual growth as a country and a need to escape in nonrealty and denial instead of dealing with a problem. America is on a whole very superstitious of growth and knowledge but going backwards is not right and is harmful for all. There are better ways to control stress then by being a zompie to some religious dogmatic way of thinking and we have to grow up.
The church does not giveth, the church taketh away. The state shall giveth in the form of devine tax dollars. Amen.
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KnutJan 30th, 2009 - 15:26:09
Why did she use fertility drugs? She already had six children. There is something grossly irresponsible about this.
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