Ever since Steve Young’s jersey retired last October 5th, the number “eight” hasn’t commanded so much attention. And Sarah Palin has every reason to be jealous, as she’ll no longer enjoy being America’s most debated woman.
When Nadya Suleman, at 33 already a single mother of six, found herself pregnant with eight thriving embryos, she knew she was in for an adventure.
Responding in an interview Friday, January 30th, she confessed: “All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That’s all I ever wanted in my life.” When questioned about the recklessness of bringing eight more children into the world, when she was already caring for six between the ages of two and seven, she defended her choice. “I love my children. When you have a history of miscarriages, you think it will take a miracle,” she told Dr. Dennis Nehamen. Referring to her chronic depression following a debilitating injury, she related that she’d “just wanted to die. I suspected I was pregnant but I thought, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Those are my children, and that’s what was available and I used them. So, I took a risk. It’s a gamble.”
“It always is” a gamble, she would muse. Apparently, she hadn’t planned to have all eight at once, but asked that all her available fertilized embryos be implanted. Was she afraid to let one or more die? That normally does happen in the process of in-vitro fertilization, when fertilized eggs develop, only to be selected out for implantation, for freezing, for experimentation, or for disposal. At least Nadya Suleman was willing to put her life on the line to witness to this: an embryo is a human being, however tiny it may be.
Now she has to live with the consequences. Or, better put, we all do. The medical care of eight children born premature, together with all the costs of raising children in today’s economic environment, might just exceed mom’s budget for the next eighteen years. Maybe this is why Shaya Tayefe Mohajer noted the surprising lack of freebee’s being offered the Sulemans.
In her article “Octuplets not being showered with gifts”, Mohajer wonders “Where is the lifetime supply of diapers, formula and baby wipes? The free van? The brand-new house? Women who give birth to six, seven or eight babies are often showered with dazzling gifts from big corporations, local businesses and strangers. But that is not happening with the Southern California mother who delivered octuplets last week…” (LA (AP) 2/4/09).
According to her February 3rd AP account, Mohajer cited these calculations: “for a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7 million through age 17, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Suleman octuplets’ medical costs have not been disclosed, but the average cost for just one cesarean birth in 2006 was $22,762 in California. The Suleman babies were born nine weeks premature. In California, a single premature birth in 2006 led to an average hospital stay of 25 days and cost $164,273. That would amount to a $1.3 million bill for eight.” Add this to the 1.3 to 2.7 million figure for raising the kids, assuming no unexpected teenage pregnancies or other unpredicted expenses, and you’ll get a whopping $2.6 to $4 million bill for the fourteen.
Nadya has promised not to depend on welfare. She probably won’t have to.
Even though she “has been lambasted by talk-show hosts, fertility experts, even her own mother, who has her hands full taking care of Suleman’s other children, ages 2 to 7”, she’ll take over soon for Sarah Palin as a talk show celebrity, beginning this Monday on the “Today” show and Tuesday on “Dateline”. Here, we’ll listen to her own account, and understand better what prompted her to make one of the most radical pro-life choices ever.
Or is this product of multiple embryonic implantations authentically pro-life – that is, does Suleman’s use of the technology of fertility respect the gospel of life, in which the Lord of Life calls us to be responsible stewards of the process of conception and the human organisms which we can generate?
Suleman’s decision to receive multiple implantations and then let nature take its course (with the help, of course, of surgery at the critical moment) is highly controversial for many, many reasons. While we who defend the dignity and the right-to-life of the embryo and human fetus rejoice in any mother who dedicates herself to the difficult task of nourishing the child developing in her womb, not all means of conception are acceptable, for a wide variety of reasons. Tomorrow, I’ll offer a few guidelines for Christians.
But this multiple birth has generated debate among non-religious people as well. I have visions of agents from Child Support Services lining up at the entrance of that fertility clinic where Suleman purchased her “implants”. It was the same doctor who fertilized her for the first six babies. And even though the same “friend” contributed his sperm each time for her babies, according to one article, one can’t help but reject the mechanistic mentality.
Dennis Wyatt commented to me that he hadn’t found many criticisms of Nadya’s mothering methodology in the more liberal papers. Surprising. Or maybe not, since to limit her freedom to implant as many babies as she can simultaneously might infringe, somehow, somewhere, on the reproductive rights of someone with a completely different reproductive agenda. Those who cry, “Too many!” might not be able to answer, “Too many of what?”
Whatever the motives of Nadya Suleman, the consequences of her choices, and the ethical complexities of in-vitro fertilization, one thing is certain: she can answer that question without any doubt: “These are all my children, and no matter what happens to me or to them, there will never be too many”.
The Catholic Church agrees. But what she cannot accept is the increasing alienation of the act of conception from the context of a caring, committed relationship between a man and a woman, from the natural processes created by God for the healthy formation of a human being, and from the physical act of union whereby a man and a woman give new life in a gesture of love.
Suleman’s quest for personal fulfillment might open the door just a bit more for those whose business is the trafficking of human beings and their tissues.
May God have mercy on those babies. And may we dedicate ourselves to the gospel of life. We’d all want to be conceived for the right reasons.
When Nadya Suleman, at 33 already a single mother of six, found herself pregnant with eight thriving embryos, she knew she was in for an adventure.
Responding in an interview Friday, January 30th, she confessed: “All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That’s all I ever wanted in my life.” When questioned about the recklessness of bringing eight more children into the world, when she was already caring for six between the ages of two and seven, she defended her choice. “I love my children. When you have a history of miscarriages, you think it will take a miracle,” she told Dr. Dennis Nehamen. Referring to her chronic depression following a debilitating injury, she related that she’d “just wanted to die. I suspected I was pregnant but I thought, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Those are my children, and that’s what was available and I used them. So, I took a risk. It’s a gamble.”
“It always is” a gamble, she would muse. Apparently, she hadn’t planned to have all eight at once, but asked that all her available fertilized embryos be implanted. Was she afraid to let one or more die? That normally does happen in the process of in-vitro fertilization, when fertilized eggs develop, only to be selected out for implantation, for freezing, for experimentation, or for disposal. At least Nadya Suleman was willing to put her life on the line to witness to this: an embryo is a human being, however tiny it may be.
Now she has to live with the consequences. Or, better put, we all do. The medical care of eight children born premature, together with all the costs of raising children in today’s economic environment, might just exceed mom’s budget for the next eighteen years. Maybe this is why Shaya Tayefe Mohajer noted the surprising lack of freebee’s being offered the Sulemans.
In her article “Octuplets not being showered with gifts”, Mohajer wonders “Where is the lifetime supply of diapers, formula and baby wipes? The free van? The brand-new house? Women who give birth to six, seven or eight babies are often showered with dazzling gifts from big corporations, local businesses and strangers. But that is not happening with the Southern California mother who delivered octuplets last week…” (LA (AP) 2/4/09).
According to her February 3rd AP account, Mohajer cited these calculations: “for a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7 million through age 17, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Suleman octuplets’ medical costs have not been disclosed, but the average cost for just one cesarean birth in 2006 was $22,762 in California. The Suleman babies were born nine weeks premature. In California, a single premature birth in 2006 led to an average hospital stay of 25 days and cost $164,273. That would amount to a $1.3 million bill for eight.” Add this to the 1.3 to 2.7 million figure for raising the kids, assuming no unexpected teenage pregnancies or other unpredicted expenses, and you’ll get a whopping $2.6 to $4 million bill for the fourteen.
Nadya has promised not to depend on welfare. She probably won’t have to.
Even though she “has been lambasted by talk-show hosts, fertility experts, even her own mother, who has her hands full taking care of Suleman’s other children, ages 2 to 7”, she’ll take over soon for Sarah Palin as a talk show celebrity, beginning this Monday on the “Today” show and Tuesday on “Dateline”. Here, we’ll listen to her own account, and understand better what prompted her to make one of the most radical pro-life choices ever.
Or is this product of multiple embryonic implantations authentically pro-life – that is, does Suleman’s use of the technology of fertility respect the gospel of life, in which the Lord of Life calls us to be responsible stewards of the process of conception and the human organisms which we can generate?
Suleman’s decision to receive multiple implantations and then let nature take its course (with the help, of course, of surgery at the critical moment) is highly controversial for many, many reasons. While we who defend the dignity and the right-to-life of the embryo and human fetus rejoice in any mother who dedicates herself to the difficult task of nourishing the child developing in her womb, not all means of conception are acceptable, for a wide variety of reasons. Tomorrow, I’ll offer a few guidelines for Christians.
But this multiple birth has generated debate among non-religious people as well. I have visions of agents from Child Support Services lining up at the entrance of that fertility clinic where Suleman purchased her “implants”. It was the same doctor who fertilized her for the first six babies. And even though the same “friend” contributed his sperm each time for her babies, according to one article, one can’t help but reject the mechanistic mentality.
Dennis Wyatt commented to me that he hadn’t found many criticisms of Nadya’s mothering methodology in the more liberal papers. Surprising. Or maybe not, since to limit her freedom to implant as many babies as she can simultaneously might infringe, somehow, somewhere, on the reproductive rights of someone with a completely different reproductive agenda. Those who cry, “Too many!” might not be able to answer, “Too many of what?”
Whatever the motives of Nadya Suleman, the consequences of her choices, and the ethical complexities of in-vitro fertilization, one thing is certain: she can answer that question without any doubt: “These are all my children, and no matter what happens to me or to them, there will never be too many”.
The Catholic Church agrees. But what she cannot accept is the increasing alienation of the act of conception from the context of a caring, committed relationship between a man and a woman, from the natural processes created by God for the healthy formation of a human being, and from the physical act of union whereby a man and a woman give new life in a gesture of love.
Suleman’s quest for personal fulfillment might open the door just a bit more for those whose business is the trafficking of human beings and their tissues.
May God have mercy on those babies. And may we dedicate ourselves to the gospel of life. We’d all want to be conceived for the right reasons.
Fr. Dean McFalls,
St. Mary’s Church, Stockton
February 6, 2009
St. Mary’s Church, Stockton
February 6, 2009
