<p>Well, to be fair, you can implant any number and not know how many will “take.” So if 8 were implanted and they only saw 7 on ultrasound, that’s not unreasonable.</p>
<p>But to broaden this discussion – one of the challenges of creating any sort of national health insurance, or health coverage that is paid for with public funds, is the difficulty of determining what gets paid for. If we agree that this infertility treatment should not have been paid for, what about infertility treatment to implant one embryo for someone with 7 children already? What about infertility treatment f you have one child already? What if you’re under the age of 35 with no children, and you’ve been trying for 15 years? What if you have no children, you’re 35, and you’ve been trying for six months? What if you’re 42 with no children?</p>
<p>It gets awfully, awfully hard to decide on the “rules” – aka “rationing.”</p>
<p>and here lies the problems that we as a society have when we open the doors for stem cell research and so many other cutting edge medical breakthroughs- if everyone did the right thing all of this would be great- IVF, private ownership of guns, cloning, - but we don’t live in a world where people do the right thing- we sell our blood, our children- it’s anything for a buck or quick “high”.<br>
Which one of us would tell this lady she couldn’t have IVF- the same people who don’t want the government to dictate what constitutes legal marriage or whether women can have abortions? </p>
<p>And who doesn’t want to pay for the care of these babies- isn’t that what we are in the middle of trying to do…socialize medicine? That way nobody is responsible for their choices. We all “share” the responsibility. </p>
<p>I really don’t mean to “bash” any of these issues - nobody should judge the heartache of infertile couples till they have walked the walk, the same with all the other issues as well. I have immediate family members who would benefit from stem cell research- like I tell my kids- no matter what door we open somebody is going to try and push further…and normally that’s good…it’s progress…but a society with no limits or boundries, where everyone gets “bailed out” and greedy choices have few consequences, that is really scary to me.</p>
<p>She needs to lose those kids though in my opinion- she’s not mentally stable and doesn’t have the ability to care for them. Selfishness to nth degree.</p>
<p>Unbelievable. What is wrong with people. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Maybe she can hope that her family is cute enough to knock Jon and Kate or the Dugger’s off the air. For her sake, I hope her name is Justine because it rhymes with fourteen!</p>
<p>Right now only some of us are sharing the responsibility for medical care. Those without any means to pay for health care, or those making foolish choices, are being carried by those that can still hang on and pay their insurance premiums. The taxpayer is also paying for medicaid and partially for medicare patients (partial socialized medicine is nothing new).</p>
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<p>This is why I think there should be some ethical guidelines. There are no easy answers though, and there always individual situations and implications.</p>
<p>Post 6 and 7 answer it (fiscally speaking)for me. She may have the right as an adult to choose to have have as many kids as she wants, but she doesn’t have the right to decide for me that I must help pay for them.</p>
<p>Wow is all I can say. 14 kids! She’ll be in college selection, FAFSA and interviews for that many the rest of her life! I shudder for so many reasons!</p>
<p>"14 kids! She’ll be in college selection, FAFSA and interviews for that many the rest of her life! "</p>
<p>I will be surprised if many of her kids end up being be college bound. It will be hard for them to get the parental attention and enrichment that would help them reach their intellectual potential.</p>
<p>When I first read about it, I thought she wanted to compete with the Duggar family but get it done more quickly. :D</p>
<p>By the way, the doctors who delivered the babies do not appear to be the ones who implanted the embryos or treated her at that stage. They say she came into them already two months pregnant. NSM may be onto something in that she may have gotten the fertility treatment and implants in another country. The doctors in CA tried to talk her into aborting some of the fetuses (this is common practice) to allow the remaining ones a better chance of survival, but she did not consent. And yes, it is hard to imagine someone treating her for “infertility” given she had six kids already and also implanting that number of embroyos given the number of kids she has and the fact that she is still young. Often more embroyos are implanted the older the mother is or the level of infertility would be a factor.</p>
<p>And yes, it is her father who is going to do contract work in Iraq. No mention so far of a husband. Not sure how this woman will be able to care for that many young children, and there is a good chance that some may end up with developmental or other issues.</p>
<p>Please read SunnyFlorida’s post before you go blaming the doctors - SF is an OB-GYn and knows of what s/he speaks. There is a whole underground economy in infertility, and that’s just among the patients, not counting the possibility of visiting Mexico, India, etc.
I also wonder about the reality show possibility, or some odd religious conviction - don’tget me wrong, I don’t blame her for not want the reduction/abortion, but I think it is almost immoral for a woman with 6 children to undergo infertility treatment.</p>
<p>There’s no right to be free from criticism. She can do what she wants, and we can think and say whatever we want about it.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, the right way to control this is with ethical strictures on the medical profession, but there’s nothing this country can do to stop people from sharing their pills or visiting shady “doctors” overseas.</p>
<p>This is outrageous. News reports say the other 6 children are aged 2 to 7. I would call it not very bright on the part of the mother and malpractice on the part of the fertility doctor. One report quoted someone as saying that embryos were implanted. I thought reputable fertility doctors implanted a max. of 3 embryos to avoid mega-multiples. </p>
<p>I agree with previous posters, if she were paying for all this herself, it’s her choice. But taxpayers will probably be footing a lot of the bill for FOURTEEN children, some of whom may have some kind of handicap, learning disability, developmental delay. And if it’s not taxpayers and she is covered by some kind of insurance, the cost of care (short and long-term) for 8 preemies affects everyone’s rates. </p>
<p>I think insurance should pay for her to go spend a month with the Duggars!</p>
<p>"CBS News has learned that the family of the octuplets born this week outside Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy and abandoned a home a little over a year-and-a-half ago. "</p>
<p>I wonder if the twins were also conceived by some type of fertility treatment. Judging from the appearance of the house shown on various news programs, it does not appear that this woman has the space or the financial resources to support 14 children. It’ll be interesting to see if companies will be offering support such as free diapers and baby food. To emphasize what several posters have said: the doctors at Kaiser did not implant the embryos. She came to them after she was pregnant. No ethical fertility specialist would allow this situation to occur. It seems like the doctors at Kaiser did the best with a difficult situation. It should be interesting to see if we ever find out how this pregnancy occurred. Other posters have offered some possibilities. It does not appear that the babies’ father is in the picture.</p>
<p>soozievet already mentioned that the doctors who delivered the babies were not the ones who gave the mother fertility drugs. LA Times reported this morning the doctors said the mother came to them when she was 12 weeks pregnant. </p>
<p>By the way, the doctor who headed the team that delivered the babies is a she, not a he. </p>
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<p>Yes, because it’s so, so easy to remain incognito when you have a family of 14 young children, including 8 octuplets. ;)</p>
<p>I can understand people wanting to have children, but FOURTEEN? I think that is completely absurd. One could go as far as saying that she is being abusive to each and every one of the kids. According to news reports, she and her husband lived in a house with her parents prior to the birth of the octuplets. In an interview with another family member, they stated that they weren’t sure how the couple was going to handle the financial burden of fourteen children.</p>