This past week, judging Nadya Suleman has turned into a national sport. Suleman, the 33-year-old mother of octuplets in Bellflower, California is being ripped apart by the media, numerous doctors, and by millions of Americans who feel that Suleman should have asked for America’s permission before making a personal decision to add more babies to her home.
Suleman, a single mother of six children aged two to seven, decided to undergo another round of in-vitro fertilization in an attempt to have one more child according her father. Her mother, Angela Suleman, is currently watching Nadya’s six other children until she returns home from the hospital. According to an Associated Press interview, the mother won’t be around to help and accused her daughter of being obsessed with having children.
Comments attached to online articles are scathing and ruthless. People are coming out of the woodwork suggesting that Suleman should have reduced the number of babies she was carrying, while others complain about how much of a tax burden these eight babies will be over the next eighteen years.
Suddenly, people think it’s okay to abort babies. Where did this sudden shift come from? To answer my own question, it’s apparent that in this time of recession in America, a public tax burden trumps good Christian values.
It all comes down to money in today’s economy. Celebrities are buying economical cars, five star resorts and cruise lines are slashing their prices left and right, and now it’s fashionable for Americans to tell a woman what to do with her uterus and its inhabitants if they feel personally burdened or disgusted. I’m practically swimming in the irony as I write this, because up until now, Christian conservatives would have been up in arms over talk of fetus reduction.
What’s more disturbing is how people are overlooking the possibility that this woman has some sort of mental condition that compels her to have so many children. In a recent CBS report, Nadya’s mother said her desire to have many children started when she was thirteen. Knowing this isn’t normal, people are still lashing out at this poor woman, before she even has a chance to heal. She probably needs counseling or some other form of help, but really, who are we to judge?
If anyone in this situation is to be scrutinized, it should be Suleman’s fertility doctor. Any reasonable doctor who took the time to do a full family history on this woman would have seen red flags. The mom wasn’t married, she had six previous children through in-vitro fertilization (five out of wedlock according to her mother), she abandoned a house over a year ago, had filed for bankruptcy. Instead of turning down her case, this doctor seemingly had no problems with performing a procedure that was known to cause multiple births, especially when so many embryos were to be implanted.
Eventually the fertility doctor will come out of hiding. He might even step down from his current specialty or have his license taken away. But, for now people need to leave the judging up to the professionals. What’s done is done. The oh-so-perfect public doesn’t have to be happy about Suleman’s decision to have more children, but now it’s time to let her family and the local child welfare organization decide what’s best for everyone involved.
Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/31/earlyshow/health/main4766068.shtml
