Mother of 6 has 8 MORE kids with fertility treatments

[Knife]

One starts to wonder about how childrearing is recognized as a basic human right by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unlike the rights to free speech, assembly, due process, and all that jazz, having a child intrinsically involves a non-consenting second (really, third) party. The parents are granted rights over the child, who in this decision of course has none. It seems strange to me to declare that these human rights are therefore of the same level of black-and-white as, say, habeas corpus.

It does not seem like a huge stretch to me to say that these children are being denied the basic human right to come into the world to a family who can, by the standards of their surrounding society, support them and help them come to maturity.

Well, I understand the ethics behind what you are implying but have to point out that there is no fucking way you can realistically enforce such a situation where you can get what you want out of that. That said, when you get in the extremes, as this lady seems to have done, it makes it easier to make a value judgment and possibly a legal argument against her. How the fuck can she competently raise all those kids? How can she ask for anonymity while hoping for donations to pay her way?

[Knife]

Jesus H fucking Christ. This selfish irresponsible cunt, having fertility treatments in order that she may have 8 more fucking kids on top of the 6 (I wonder how many dads?) she already has? And she is bankrupt? What the fuck? This is why we need a fucking cap and trade system on fucking children. Each person gets 1. Couples have 2, you can pay other people for their offspring vouchers. This brings the birth rate just below the replacement level of 2.1

We can combine this with a Childless Couple tax credit. People that dont have kids and dont sell off their vouchers get a tax rebate. Joy of sweet joys!

Yeah, putting the birthrate below a sustaining level is a good thing for a species. Whoo hooo. I know you don't like humans but jesus fucking christ.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Jesus H fucking Christ. This selfish irresponsible cunt, having fertility treatments in order that she may have 8 more fucking kids on top of the 6 (I wonder how many dads?) she already has? And she is bankrupt? What the fuck? This is why we need a fucking cap and trade system on fucking children. Each person gets 1. Couples have 2, you can pay other people for their offspring vouchers. This brings the birth rate just below the replacement level of 2.1

We can combine this with a Childless Couple tax credit. People that dont have kids and dont sell off their vouchers get a tax rebate. Joy of sweet joys!

Actually in a nation with the best health services available right now in the world, the replacement level is more about 2.05. If US health care was competent, we could easily get to that level.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Why do we need a birthrate at or above sustaining level when there are nearly 7 billion humans on Earth. Do you have any evidence to support the implicit assertion that 7 billion indefinitely is a sustainable situation, or are you just shooting your mouth off?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Jesus H fucking Christ. This selfish irresponsible cunt, having fertility treatments in order that she may have 8 more fucking kids on top of the 6 (I wonder how many dads?) she already has? And she is bankrupt? What the fuck? This is why we need a fucking cap and trade system on fucking children. Each person gets 1. Couples have 2, you can pay other people for their offspring vouchers. This brings the birth rate just below the replacement level of 2.1

We can combine this with a Childless Couple tax credit. People that dont have kids and dont sell off their vouchers get a tax rebate. Joy of sweet joys!

Yeah, putting the birthrate below a sustaining level is a good thing for a species. Whoo hooo. I know you don't like humans but jesus fucking christ.

Not that I think that doing so by coercion is a good idea, but yes; when a species has overpopulated it's habitat, it is a good thing for it's birth rate to drop below replacement. It's the most painless method there is of reducing it's population to sustainable levels.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, putting the birthrate below a sustaining level is a good thing for a species. Whoo hooo. I know you don't like humans but jesus fucking christ.

Knife, in fairness, with such a system in place, the population wouldn't even stop growing for decades. And 2.0 would be so close to the 2.05 replacement rate we'd have with a functional healthcare system that immigration and adoption from overseas would certainly cause substantial continued population growth in the US; all over the world it would take decades for population growth to come to a stop at that average. At that point it could be at least hypothetically feasable to then proceed to auction off a set of extra vouchers (the child lotto) which would be of the right size to bring us to 2.05.

I don't really support such a system since I think it is taking care of itself in most of the world, but Aly isn't being misanthropic.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Jesus H fucking Christ. This selfish irresponsible cunt, having fertility treatments in order that she may have 8 more fucking kids on top of the 6 (I wonder how many dads?) she already has? And she is bankrupt? What the fuck? This is why we need a fucking cap and trade system on fucking children. Each person gets 1. Couples have 2, you can pay other people for their offspring vouchers. This brings the birth rate just below the replacement level of 2.1

We can combine this with a Childless Couple tax credit. People that dont have kids and dont sell off their vouchers get a tax rebate. Joy of sweet joys!

Yeah, putting the birthrate below a sustaining level is a good thing for a species. Whoo hooo. I know you don't like humans but jesus fucking christ.

Does it need to be permanent? No. All you need to do is get the population under control, as it is, we have IIRC 6.4 billion mouths to feed and will hit 9 billion in a few decades, which breeches our carrying capacity. We dont need a population at over 6 billion to maintain our species. In fact, our species has survived rather well with numbers well below that until this century.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Jesus H fucking Christ. This selfish irresponsible cunt, having fertility treatments in order that she may have 8 more fucking kids on top of the 6 (I wonder how many dads?) she already has? And she is bankrupt? What the fuck? This is why we need a fucking cap and trade system on fucking children. Each person gets 1. Couples have 2, you can pay other people for their offspring vouchers. This brings the birth rate just below the replacement level of 2.1

We can combine this with a Childless Couple tax credit. People that dont have kids and dont sell off their vouchers get a tax rebate. Joy of sweet joys!

Actually in a nation with the best health services available right now in the world, the replacement level is more about 2.05. If US health care was competent, we could easily get to that level.

I was thinking world wide, but point taken. The point is to get it to replacement or slightly below.

I am of course fine with a cap and trade. It would need to be instituted from the top down, and would need an enforcement method.

I would also be fine with eventually replacing it with increased standards of living which can maintain zero population growth. However to do that we need to distinctly not pump out more kids than we can afford to feed.

[Knife]

Why do we need a birthrate at or above sustaining level when there are nearly 7 billion humans on Earth. Do you have any evidence to support the implicit assertion that 7 billion indefinitely is a sustainable situation, or are you just shooting your mouth off?

I assume you're referring to me; I never said a damn thing about nor asserted that 7 bilion is sustainable, non sustainable or anthing thing of the sort. Rather thought dropping off the birth rate as a mandate (which was implied in his post) was asinine.

Not that I think that doing so by coercion is a good idea, but yes; when a species has overpopulated it's habitat, it is a good thing for it's birth rate to drop below replacement. It's the most painless method there is of reducing it's population to sustainable levels.

Most first world countries have that without coercion or by government policy which is what AD was implying. Indeed, without the fundie hicks the US would probably be in the negatives as well. Perhaps education and lifting the hicks out of the small town, good church philosaphy would go further than a government mandate like China's.

Knife, in fairness, with such a system in place, the population wouldn't even stop growing for decades. And 2.0 would be so close to the 2.05 replacement rate we'd have with a functional healthcare system that immigration and adoption from overseas would certainly cause substantial continued population growth in the US; all over the world it would take decades for population growth to come to a stop at that average. At that point it could be at least hypothetically feasable to then proceed to auction off a set of extra vouchers (the child lotto) which would be of the right size to bring us to 2.05.

Meh, devil's in the details I suppose. Ok, I withdraw my assertion.

I don't really support such a system since I think it is taking care of itself in most of the world, but Aly isn't being misanthropic.

Yeah, kind of my thought I expressed above to LoA, but I did think AD was being a prick. My bad.

Does it need to be permanent? No. All you need to do is get the population under control, as it is, we have IIRC 6.4 billion mouths to feed and will hit 9 billion in a few decades, which breeches our carrying capacity. We dont need a population at over 6 billion to maintain our species. In fact, our species has survived rather well with numbers well below that until this century.

Yeah, but China's been struggling with that for years and it creates whole new messes of problems. But like I conceeded to Marina, and tried to express to Lord of the Abyss, I think a well educated and structured society will naturally drift towards smaller family. It's the uneducated and those following traditions that tend to try to breed themselves a new village.

[Eulogy]

This brainless bitch needs to be sterilised.

If you want something cute, cuddly, and helpless to take care of, then why not get a kitten? After all:

- Women don't have to go through pregnancy when they adopt a kitten
- Cats are expensive, yes, but they are much less expensive than an actual child
- Cats have less social stigmas attached to them; this means that kittens are much easier and quicker to have someone else take care of than human kids
- Cats are much easier to care for than humans
- Cats don't talk back or commit crimes, and they are much less likely to get you sued
- Cats mature much faster than kids, which means that they can be housebroken, weaned, etc. earlier

Unfortunately, baby factories don't see it that way.

[Knife]

children have a social stigma? Cat's don't commit crime and are more mature than kids? How fucking old are you.

The OP deserves scorn but damn.

[Solauren]

Apparently, the doctor that delivered it got the 'Heebie Jeebies' from this....

Nice Call Doc

By Dan Whitcomb

ADVERTISEMENT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The California woman who astonished doctors earlier this week by giving birth to octuplets at a suburban Los Angeles hospital already has six other children, CBS News reported on Thursday.


The woman delivered six boys and two girls prematurely by Caesarean section on Monday, surprising doctors who had seen only seven babies in ultrasound images.


Officials at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in the Los Angeles suburb of Bellflower have declined to identify the mother or reveal if she received fertility treatments, which can increase the likelihood of multiple births.


There are no known cases of naturally conceived octuplets.


A Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman declined to comment on the CBS report but said that all eight babies were still in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit and doing well.


Five of the babies were feeding and six were breathing on their own, hospital spokeswoman Nancy Tovar-Huxen said. She said doctors had not yet determined when they could go home.


In reporting on "The Early Show" that the mother already has six other children, a CBS reporter who visited the woman's Los Angeles-area home cited two unnamed acquaintances.


One of those acquaintances said that the mother lived with her parents and that two of her other children were twins.


The birth of the octuplets already has raised eyebrows, with fertility and reproductive experts saying that such high-risk pregnancies should be avoided.

"When we see something like this in the general fertility world, it gives us the heebie-jeebies," Michael Tucker, an Atlanta-based clinical embryologist and leading researcher in fertility treatments, told the Los Angeles Times.

"If a medical practitioner had anything to do with it, there's some degree of inappropriate medical therapy there," the Times quoted him as saying.
The last octuplets known to have survived birth in the United States, six girls and two boys, were born in Houston in 1998. One of the babies, a girl, died one week later.

Emphasis mine.

Oh, and Eulogy, grow the hell up.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah, but China's been struggling with that for years and it creates whole new messes of problems. But like I conceeded to Marina, and tried to express to Lord of the Abyss, I think a well educated and structured society will naturally drift towards smaller family. It's the uneducated and those following traditions that tend to try to breed themselves a new village.

Put it this way. We have bred and consumed ourselves into being fucked. Human carrying capacity is 9 billion. Give or take. Had it not been for the Green Revolution it would have been less. We will probably hit that number sometime in the next century. At that point the world wide death rate will equal the birth rate and the population will stabilize. I would prefer not to live in a world where due to famine, disease and war, the mortality rate equals the birth rate. I would also prefer not to see the horrific ecological damage that will be sustained by the need to support ourselves, considering what we are already doing. We would be little more than agents of death and destruction at that point, if you catch my drift.

While it is true that educated and a properly structured society does indeed have a lower birth rate, sometimes even below replacement rate, it is also true that we cannot bring such advancements to thye rest of the world without a substantially lower population, not in the amount of time we have until Thomas Malthus gets to rise out of his grave and say "I told you so".

This means that we need to institute (if you dont want to hit carrying capacity...) hard controls on the population, and a Cap and Trade +childless couple tax rebate is the least tyrannical solution, in my judgment.

[Mayabird]

More details

Octuplets' Mom: Can She Afford to Raise 14 Kids?
Grandmother of Octuplets, Who Shares a Home With the Mom of the Eight Babies, Filed for Bankruptcy Last Year
By SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN, SANTINA LEUCI, ALICE GOMSTYN and DAN CHILDS
Jan. 31, 2009

The California woman who gave birth to octuplets on Monday, although once married, seems to have had all 14 of her kids out of wedlock -- and various public records raise questions about the family's ability to support them.

A California woman gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 27, 2009, a multiple birth record for the second time in history. That means eight times as much love, but will it also cost eight times as much money?
(Getty/ABC News)

ABC News has learned through San Bernardino Superior Court Records that the 33-year-old California woman, whose name is Nadya Doud (she filed to have her name changed to Nadya Suleman in 2001 -- though it was not clear if the request was granted), divorced her husband, Marcos Gutierrez, in January 2008.

The document indicates "no children of the marriage," suggesting that Gutierrez was not the father of Doud's previous six children.

Doud lived with Gutierrez for about three-and-a-half years from August 1996 until January 2000, when she moved back with her parents, Edward and Angela Suleman, living at several addresses, records show. The parents were granted a divorce in Las Vegas in 1999, but evidently still live together.

Within a few years of living with Gutierrez, Doud began having her 14 children.

Another set of court documents may raise the question of whether Doud will be able to afford care for all those kids. The public records indicate that Doud's mother filed for bankruptcy in March 2008.

The family currently lives in a three-bedroom home in suburban Los Angeles.

As of March, Edward Suleman, apparently the octuplets' grandfather, was working in Iraq, according to the bankruptcy filing. The couple's combined monthly income was listed as roughly $8,740, but the filing indicated that Angela Suleman expected their income would rise from her husband's employment. It said that he would earn $100,000 a year. The document did not specify Suleman's husband's occupation, but Suleman told the Los Angeles Times that her husband was a contractor.

Suleman told the newspaper that her daughter had had fertility treatment but never expected the treatment would result in eight babies.

She said that raising 14 children "was going to be difficult."

No matter what your income, giving birth and caring for octuplets is an expensive proposition. The infants' delivery was performed by a team of 46 doctors, nurses and surgical assistants stationed in four delivery rooms at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in Bellflower, Calif., and it likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"You can think of it as an eightfold increase on a singleton birth," said Steven M. Donn, director of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System. "By comparison, the mother's care will probably be a bargain."

Costs for the average delivery of a full-term pregnancy range from $9,000 to $25,000, depending on whether the baby is delivered by Caesarean section or vaginally. Eight times $25,000 is a whopping $200,000.

But Donn said the cost of the octuplets' delivery likely exceeded that number because doctors prepared for the risks associated with a multiple-birth delivery.

"For reasons we don't completely understand, risks with multifetal deliveries are greater than [normal births]," Donn said.

The medical costs for babies born preterm, like the California octuplets, which were born nine weeks premature, are also above average.

"The real significant costs come on the pediatric side, particularly when it comes to neonatal intensive care," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a maternal-fetal specialist at Duke University Medical Center.

A full-term pregnancy lasts from 38 to 42 weeks, according to the National Institutes of Health, and Swamy estimated for babies born at 30 weeks the hospital stay could be "anywhere from six weeks to six months."

For an infant stay in a neonatal intensive care unit, costs can add up to "a few thousand a day," she said.

"So we are looking at probably several hundreds of thousands of dollars for the family. If it is $100,000 per baby, for example, then it would be $800,000 for all eight," Swamy said.

Octuplets' Birth Raises Ethical Questions

Sally, a next-door neighbor and family acquaintance who requested only her first name be used, said her past conversations with the Doud indicated that she may have used assisted reproduction in her earlier pregnancies.

Sally said that the mother had told her that all six of her previous children also were conceived through artificial means.

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan said there are serious ethical concerns surrounding the decision to move forward with multiple-fetus pregnancies -- particularly if the babies were conceived through in-vitro fertilization, which Suleman has indicated was the case with her daughter.

"Anyone who transfers eight embryos should be arrested for malpractice," Caplan said.

Studies have shown that the tendency toward prematurity and low birth weight in multiple-birth babies puts them at greater risk for a variety of complications, including respiratory problems at birth, cerebral palsy, birth defects, sensory disorders and even death. These risks increase as the number of babies in the multiple birth increases.

Dr. Richard Paulson, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, agreed that multiple births are a problem that should be avoided at all costs.

"Even though this story has a positive spin, it should be seen as a very serious complication of fertility treatment," Paulson said. "Patients who conceive octuplets would routinely be offered -- even advised -- selective reduction. I have to assume that in this case, the patients decided to try and carry to viability, and they were lucky, plus they got some really good doctors."

Octuplets' Tab Will Continue to Climb

When the infants leave the hospital, the bills will keep piling up.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's new Cost of Raising a Child Calculator -- a new tool the department has developed to help parents prepare for expenses and life insurance -- a middle-class family living in the western United States can expect to spend at least $9,171 on year's worth of housing, food, transportation, clothing, health, education and other expenses for a single child under the age of 1.

For eight children under the age of 1, that number mushrooms to $73,368.

Projected costs keep climbing as the children get older, according to the USDA calculator. By the time the children are 17, their parents can expect to spend at least $10,133 on each child annually, or $81,064 total for the year.

Overall, from birth through high school, the family will spend a projected $171,926 per child, for a total of $1,375,408.

"The kids are going to grow up in an environment where being frugal is part of life," said Kathy Peel, the author of "The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home."

Peel, a mother of three from Houston, said she believes the projections devised through the USDA calculator are low.

She said she doubted, for instance, that a family would spend $308 per year on an infant's clothing, as estimated by the USDA. Disposable diapers alone, she said, could cost about $72 a month for a single child. For eight babies, that would total nearly $7,000 a year.

Peel said that while the family can save money by buying goods in bulk, it will lose out on the cost benefits of "hand-me-down" clothing -- with all the children being the same age, she said, there won't be any clothes left to hand down.

And then there are the costs beyond adolescence, like college. By the time the octuplets turn 18 in 2027, the Web site SavingforCollege.com projects that four-year tuition at a public university will cost $87,200 per student.

If all eight octuplets head to a public college, the family could find itself stuck with tuition bills totalling nearly $700,000. That sum rises if any of the children go to a more expensive private college.

"The good news for this family is I'm sure they're going to be given a lot of things that will be very helpful," said Peel.

The Gosselin Family

In years past, families with sextuplets -- six infants born at the same time -- have received everything from free cars to new homes to guaranteed college tuition.

Jon and Kate Gosselin, the parents of twins and sextuplets and the stars of the television show "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" on the TLC network, speak openly about the free vacations they've received in exchange for free publicity on their show. Kate Gosselin also received a free tummy tuck courtesy of a physician who was also featured on the show.

The Chukwu family, who gave birth to the first-known octuplets, one of which died a week after birth, put out a call for donations when the children were born in Texas in 1998. It worked: They received cash contributions, volunteer help with child care, a year's worth of grocery and diaper donations and more.

Nkem Chukwu, the octuplets' mother, said the support the family received after the birth proved critical. She said the California octuplets' family should also ask for help.

"They need help. They need support from their community, from their church," she said.

And, she added, they have to "take it easy, just one day at a time."

[Knife]

I digress, this is going to be one of those weird hippie commune things instead of redneck bible thumpers.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I can see this bitch being used as an excuse to ban 'single' women from getting fertility treatments... i.e., banning lesbians from having children on the sly.

[Solauren]

How the did did she afford Fertility treatments to begin with?

[Knife]

How the did did she afford Fertility treatments to begin with?

That's one of the things that is fishy imo.

[FSTargetDrone]

AP.

Perhaps this sheds some light on this madness:

Grandma: Octuplets mom obsessed with having kids

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON,
Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 21 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.

Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.

"It can't go on any longer," she said in a phone interview Friday. "She's got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn't want to get married."

Nadya Suleman, 33, gave birth Monday in nearby Bellflower. She was expected to remain in the hospital for at least a few more days, and her newborns for at least a month.

A spokeswoman at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center said the babies were doing well and seven were breathing unassisted.

While her daughter recovers, Angela Suleman is taking care of the other six children, ages 2 through 7, at the family home in Whittier, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

She said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."

Angela Suleman said her daughter always had trouble conceiving and underwent in vitro fertilization treatments because her fallopian tubes are "plugged up."

There were frozen embryos left over after her previous pregnancies and her daughter didn't want them destroyed, so she decided to have more children.

Her mother and doctors have said the woman was told she had the option to abort some of the embryos and, later, the fetuses. She refused.

Her mother said she does not believe her daughter will have any more children.

"She doesn't have any more (frozen embryos), so it's over now," she said. "It has to be."

Nadya Suleman wanted to have children since she was a teenager, "but luckily she couldn't," her mother said.

"Instead of becoming a kindergarten teacher or something, she started having them, but not the normal way," he mother said.

Her daughter's obsession with children caused Angela Suleman considerable stress, so she sought help from a psychologist, who told her to order her daughter out of the house.

"Maybe she wouldn't have had so many kids then, but she is a grown woman," Angela Suleman said. "I feel responsible and I didn't want to throw her out."

Yolanda Garcia, 49, of Whittier, said she helped care for Nadya Suleman's autistic son three years ago.

"From what I could tell back then, she was pretty happy with herself, saying she liked having kids and she wanted 12 kids in all," Garcia told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

"She told me that all of her kids were through in vitro, and I said 'Gosh, how can you afford that and go to school at the same time?"' she added. "And she said it's because she got paid for it."

Garcia said she did not ask for details.

Nadya Suleman holds a 2006 degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, and as late as last spring she was studying for a master's degree in counseling, college spokeswoman Paula Selleck told the Press-Telegram.

Her fertility doctor has not been identified. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times all the children came from the same sperm donor but she declined to identify him.

Birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press identify a David Solomon as the father for the four oldest children. Certificates for the other children were not immediately available.

The news that the octuplets' mother already had six children sparked an ethical debate. Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that she was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.

Others worried that she would be overwhelmed trying to raise so many children and would end up relying on public support.

The eight babies — six boys and two girls — were delivered by Cesarean section weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries.

She got paid for it? Who paid for it? And it's unclear, but I wonder if it's "paid for going to school," or "paid to get pregnant"? If the latter, why?

I'm with the opinion that this woman is addicted to kids.

You may be right!

[Knife]

Again, the whole 'doctor doing this' is fishy as fucking hell. Now she is somehow getting paid for this?

Also, on a side issue, my opinion of social workers, and councilor's has just been radically diminished and I didn't have a high regard for them anyways.

[Solauren]

There needs to be extensive (and possibly criminal) investigations into this.

In the meantime, I think the kids should all be put into foster homes. Clearly, they are not in a suitable home environment.

[Knife]

There needs to be extensive (and possibly criminal) investigations into this.

In the meantime, I think the kids should all be put into foster homes. Clearly, they are not in a suitable home environment.

I think grandma needs a couple sessions with a therapist too. She has apparently objected to her daughter doing this and yet keeps enabling her.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think grandma needs a couple sessions with a therapist too. She has apparently objected to her daughter doing this and yet keeps enabling her.

Well, there is this:

While her daughter recovers, Angela Suleman is taking care of the other six children, ages 2 through 7, at the family home in Whittier, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

She said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."

And then:

Her daughter's obsession with children caused Angela Suleman considerable stress, so she sought help from a psychologist, who told her to order her daughter out of the house.

"Maybe she wouldn't have had so many kids then, but she is a grown woman," Angela Suleman said. "I feel responsible and I didn't want to throw her out."

Unless there is more to come out, I don't know what else the mother could have done. If someone else is paying for this, what could she do? She's already helping to care for the older children, all minors.

In any case, I'm interested in what sort of background check any fertility clinic does. Do they ask if the intended mother- or parents-to-be can support X number of children? Do they ask how many other children are in the home? I may have missed it among all the quoted material above, but it seems there should be some basic or minimal standards the prospective parents should meet. Perhaps the "right to have children" trumps any such questioning or background checks?

[mr friendly guy]

Yeah, putting the birthrate below a sustaining level is a good thing for a species. Whoo hooo. I know you don't like humans but jesus fucking christ.

I know I was late coming into it, but the other thing is, if only the US adopts this hypothetical measure of AD's, it could still maintain its population via immigration. I would even go so far to argue that even if AD's measures were adopted world wide, some countries (notably poorer ones) would need its population to drop faster, and immigration to a richer country could be another option to help that.

[Garlak]

This brainless bitch needs to be sterilised.

If you want something cute, cuddly, and helpless to take care of, then why not get a kitten? After all:

- Women don't have to go through pregnancy when they adopt a kitten
- Cats are expensive, yes, but they are much less expensive than an actual child
- Cats have less social stigmas attached to them; this means that kittens are much easier and quicker to have someone else take care of than human kids
- Cats are much easier to care for than humans
- Cats don't talk back or commit crimes, and they are much less likely to get you sued
- Cats mature much faster than kids, which means that they can be housebroken, weaned, etc. earlier

Unfortunately, baby factories don't see it that way.

children have a social stigma? Cat's don't commit crime and are more mature than kids? How fucking old are you.

The OP deserves scorn but damn.

Single mother with a child probably has some stigma. Or with a single woman getting pregnant--people don't necessarily assume that a woman went to a fertility clinic and/or got a sperm donation... They just see "single woman" + "looks pregnant"/"having more kids" and go from there.

Cats mature FASTER than children. As in, grow up faster. Which would mean that you would have to take care of them at a "baby" stage for less time than you would have to devote to a human baby.

It's unlikely that taking care of a cat will lead to law suits over who should take care of the cat, or to whom it belongs... e.t.c.

"Cat's dont commit crime"
Well, that's true, but... It a very.. pessimistic? and cynical outlook on childraising. Though if it's a poor mother/family in a poor area, then your child might be in more danger/more likely to... not grow up as a very well-adjusted person.