Your freedom to have children only goes so far

“California woman” is a seemingly vague term, but enter it into Google and the results all refer to the same California woman, Nadya Suleman.

This 33-year-old California woman recently gave birth to octuplets. That means eight. That’s a miracle. My first reaction to this was, “Wow, congratulations!” It’s not every day that someone has eight children.

Then more information started rolling in. This California woman conceived these babies through in vitro fertilization through a sperm donor. This California woman already has six kids, also conceived through IVF. This California woman has no husband or boyfriend, only her mother, to help her raise these children. This California woman is unemployed, and supported her first six children through money from the state. Three of her first six children receive Social Security disability payments - one is autistic, one has ADHD, and another has mild speech delay.

It’s not a single one of these factors that causes me to think that she shouldn’t have had these eight more children, it’s the combination of all of them. If it was a single woman who wanted to have children, sure. I have nothing against single mothers. But she already has six children. I have no experience with this, but something tells me it can’t be easy for one woman to raise six children.

Now she has fourteen.

She didn’t have eight embroyos implanted, she had six. Two split apart, I suppose. But still, to implant six embryos? First of all, she can’t afford to have another six kids. Second of all, how safe is that?

Multiple births are risky. Babies from mulitple births have more risk for health problems. But I won’t get into that, because I don’t know a thing about health.

How is she going to take care of fourteen children? No doubt she is going to need increased assistance from the government. This is not just a little money a month. This is a lot of money a month until this woman can find some means of fully financially supporting herself and her family, or until all her kids turn 18, which will be in 18 years. If we’re waiting for the former, I think we’ll be waiting for a while. How many employed, two-parent families do you know that can support fourteen kids? Didn’t think so.

Money that comes from the government comes from the tax payers, and considering the economic situation the United States and specifically California is in, I think that says enough in itself.

The responsibility for this does not lie solely in Nadya Suleman. Perhaps she is not the most mentally stable woman. The clinic, in particular the doctor she dealt with, must be held responsible. The current guideline for IVF for women under 35, such as Nadya Suleman, is one to two embryos. I understand that she wanted all of them implanted because they were frozen embryos from previous treatments. But that frozen embryo eventually becomes a live baby, and that baby needs care and attention from a mother. The doctor, who also treated Suleman before, knew that she has six kids already, and now he is hearing that she wants six more. The woman is single and she is unemployed - she cannot take care of twelve kids. Any doctor should be able to realize that, and upon hearing such desires from the woman, should recommend her to a psychiatrist/psychologist. Maybe she’s obsessed with having children. Maybe she has some desire to have a super huge family. I don’t know. But what she wants is not feasible, and a responsible doctor should not only have denied her the treatment, but also get her some help.

This is a country where you are legally free to have children, as many as you want. Unlike China, we have no one-child policy. Thanks to technology, you don’t even need a spouse. This is one of the great things about America. That being said, if you’re going to have children, you have to make sure you are able to take care of them. It costs money to raise a child, to afford basic necessities such as food and clothing. You can have as many kids as you want, but you have to be sure you can pay for them, minus their free public education.  Suleman is unemployed, and thus collecting money from the state, in the form of food stamps and whatnot to support her family. You should only have as many children as you can afford. How many children a woman has stops being her own business when others’ taxes go towards that decision.

Some have proposed legislation limiting how many children a woman should be able to have. I disagree, because that is far too subjective. But people should use their own heads. Nadya Suleman had several IVF treatments, so clearly, these fourteen kids were no accident.

I honestly don’t know what the mother or the doctor was thinking. I wish those fourteen children the best.