8 is more than enough

I've been reading some stories about the mom who recently gave birth to eight babies. While I feel for these children as they may have a rough time ahead for them, I have to wonder about the mental state of their mother. It was bad enough to hear about other parents of multiple births dealing with the trials and tribulations associated with that number of children, but to hear that this woman is single, unemployed and has six other children, I immediately thought, "What the hell was she thinking?!?"

The cynic in me immediately thinks she's in it for the fame and/or money. Why not when companies tend to shower gifts--to include homes and cars--on the families of multiples? I think, though, that this woman had no idea what kind of flack she was getting when she went into this. Already companies are shying away from her due to possible bad publicity. Associating your company name with a possibly irresponsible parent tends to look bad. I'm not saying from the jump that she is a bad parent, far from it, but the information provided so far doesn't look good.

This brings up another point. Why are these people profitting from this semi-accident of fate? You don't see Proctor & Gamble, Gerber or Graco showering gifts on parents of single-birth children. For the most part, these families had these litters of kids (really there is no other term to describe it) due to fertility treatments. I say if the families can afford the fertility treatment, they should be planning on all the expenses associated with this kind of birth, including hospital costs. I hate to be one of those people, but I don't think we (the taxpayers) should be footing the bill for someone who can't pay the exorbidant costs. It is supposed that the hospital bill alone for the octuplets will be in excess of $1 million. How's she going to pay for it? We'll probably end up paying for it.

Another point is about the ethics of it all. When the McCaugheys announced about their septuplets and were asked about the selective reduction of the embryos to give some of the babies a better chance at survival, they responded something to the effect of it was God's will that they had that many kids. No it wasn't. It was science's will. Don't play the holier than thou card on this when you needed scientific intervention just to get pregnant. I'm not saying that it's not great that science can help families that may otherwise not be able to have children, but to say that it somehow was preordained by God to happen that way is a crock! Get off the soap box and admit what it is. This woman had no reason to have eight embryos implanted when all the fertility experts say they only implant one, maybe two max. This woman was cracked or was in it for the glory. They need to get her off the air now and not let her profit from this at all otherwise you'll have other crackpots trying for 9 or 10 or 12 babies at a time.

I think I need a chill pill at life.sa.laugh@hotmail.com.