Eight Is Enough

When I first heard the story of the octuplets being born to a Southern California woman, I winced. Then I heard that she already had six kids. I winced again. Fourteen kids. She's got enough for first string, second string, and still got enough to come in off the bench. Fourteen. And not spread out over the years. She has a house full of kids all under the age of eight. The more we find out, the less it sounds like a sit-com and more like something from the mind of David Lynch.
Nadya Suleman was interviewed Friday on the Today show. She explained that six embryos were implanted for each of her pregnancies. When asked why so many embryos were implanted, Suleman said: "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."
What, exactly, is the risk she is referring to? Does she mean that this thirty-three year-old unemployed single mother is taking a chance on being able to properly care, clothe and feed that many children? Does she mean that she wants to set some sort of dubious record? Did somebody bet her that she couldn't hold that many embryos in her womb at once?
"All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life," Suleman said in Friday's interview. Even though there is no law in the United States dictating the number of embryos that can be placed in a mother's womb, doctors say the norm is to implant two or three embryos, at most, in women Suleman's age. Now the California Medical Board is left scratching their collective head, trying to determine just how ethical this particular treatment was. Whatever the outcome of the investigation, it certainly puts an interesting twist on any further discussion about "pro-choice."