I do believe that this is an ethical issue and that a woman should be limited to the number of embryos she can have implanted. I've seen the problems that a multiple birth can entail firsthand, from when my twin boys were born 3 months premature. Multiple births are so incredibly risky, both to babies and to the mom. With twins, only 50% of the time do both babies survive a twin pregnancy. Most people don't realize this. This stat is worse the more babies you have at a time. Women's bodies simply aren't built to carry more than one baby at a time. My son who spent two months in NICU ended up with a bill of over $1 million. Fortunately, we had great insurance at the time and had pretty decent coverage. That was back in 1995. I can't imagine the cost of care today for the octuplets.
There's a couple in my neighborhood that had quadruplets about a year ago. They have to lean on friends and neighbors quite a bit as they raise their babies, and each one of the babies has obviously had developmental issues. I look at those babies and think it's so sad that their parents knowingly brought them into the world even though they would most likely have prematurity-related developmental disorders or worse. The father often touts his babies as a miracle.... I call it a freak of science. And a dangerous one at that.
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I do believe that this is an ethical issue and that a woman should be limited to the number of embryos she can have implanted. I've seen the problems that a multiple birth can entail firsthand, from when my twin boys were born 3 months premature. Multiple births are so incredibly risky, both to babies and to the mom. With twins, only 50% of the time do both babies survive a twin pregnancy. Most people don't realize this. This stat is worse the more babies you have at a time. Women's bodies simply aren't built to carry more than one baby at a time. My son who spent two months in NICU ended up with a bill of over $1 million. Fortunately, we had great insurance at the time and had pretty decent coverage. That was back in 1995. I can't imagine the cost of care today for the octuplets.
There's a couple in my neighborhood that had quadruplets about a year ago. They have to lean on friends and neighbors quite a bit as they raise their babies, and each one of the babies has obviously had developmental issues. I look at those babies and think it's so sad that their parents knowingly brought them into the world even though they would most likely have prematurity-related developmental disorders or worse. The father often touts his babies as a miracle.... I call it a freak of science. And a dangerous one at that.
March 6, 2009 - 10:35pmThis Comment
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