LA Times reporter sends out anti-choice email
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The woman who gave birth to octuplets has provided plenty of fodder for feminist conversation, but that's not what I'd like to write about. I want to know why someone from the Los Angeles Times sent out an email (above) calling selective reduction "killing off" babies.
Andrew Malcolm, a writer and blogger for the paper, sent out a mass email last week with the subject line: "fyi octuplet mom alrdy had 6 kids so docs offered to kill off some of the 8 for her."
So much for objective journalism.
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The way I read it, the quote from Suleman is where the word "kill" comes in, not from the reporter. Either way, all of the people who are feeling free to persecute this woman on TV and in radio spots are a nauseating source of sickness in the anti-woman climate we are living in. Who gives a crap if she wants to have 50 kids! It's not anyone's business but hers.
If she is unable to care for 12 kids, I care.
8 + 6 = 14
normally i would agree, but i think most people are more concerned for the kids than what she's doing with her uterus. ie, they are afraid of the children growing up in a neglectful or unhealthy/unsafe environment.
It's my business if she's raising 50 kids and cannot care for them, which would almost certainly be the case. It's yours too. This is why we have abuse and neglect laws.
can we all agree that the welfare of these children is between the mother AND the father? If we are going to judge this woman on how many children she has, we need to remember she is (presumably) not making these choices alone.
According to every report I've seen, she used a sperm donor to conceive. So while I'd usually agree, in this case she is pretty much making the decision on her own.
I think it's even more simple than the "can she afford to support them?" argument.
Carrying 7 or 8 babies puts those babies at severe risk of long-term health consequences. We don't let parents endanger their children's health.
I agree with the commenter who said no one should be forced to have an abortion (or selectively reduce.) However, I do think it should be a condition of fertility treatments - if you are not willing to selectively reduce, you do not have more than 2-3 embryos implanted.
One can selectively abort an embryo that is not developing properly and taking sustenance away from the other embryo(s). It's a health/life issue for the other embryo(s). Eight embryos probably shouldn't have been implanted anyway, so I don't know how choosing not to have some of the embryos aborted is particularly pro-life, if that's what the mother is implying. I mean, is it pro-life to place a woman's life in danger and create 8 people that will probably have health problems for a very long time? I wouldn't think so, but who knows.
I don't think e-mail you posted is particularly anti-choice. I feel the same way dr pami does in that respect. But what Andrew Malcom said is pretty ridiculous.
They implant eight, sometimes ten embryos at any given time because generally, out of those eight to ten embryos, only one or two will be viable. Artificial Insemination is a very expensive process, so doctors try to make it as cost effective as possible by using many embryos to try and make as few procedures as possible.
Rarely, like in the case of this woman and the Gosselins (http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html) many of the embryos become viable. This is actually considered a "fertility nightmare" (as Kate Gosselin put it in an episode of Jon and Kate Plus Eight)
When this does happen, doctors offer the option of "reduction".
In my opinion, no woman should be forced to have a child, or an abortion, she doesn't want. It's a choice for a reason.
Fourteen young children all at once is a lot for one woman to handle. (I know, I used to work in a synagogue nursery and had many children all to myself, all under age 8. The difference is that I didn't have to take them home with me) I'm concerned about the burden on the state, I'm concerned about her mental status and why she has a compulsive need to have children.
Also...this woman won't be expecting any corporate gifts for her new babies. ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-02-03-octuplets-gifts_N.htm )
In the US many embryos are used, but in a lot of European countries there are regulations that require they only implant two or sometimes even one. The success rate between two embryos and 6 embryos is actually not that different.
And even in the US there are limits:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/questions-over-octuplets-multiply/?scp=1&sq=Nadya%20Suleman&st=cse
"The guidelines prescribed by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, most recently revised in July 2008, state that a woman under 35 should not be implanted with more than two embryos. Reproductive physicians have generally been incensed to hear that Ms. Suleman might have been implanted with as many as eight"
In Canada, apparently they only implant a maximum of 2 embryos, and 3 if the woman is over 40:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090204/IVF_octuplets_090204/20090204?hub=Canada&s_name
And with the Gosselins, according to their Wikipedia page, they didn't have invitro fertilization, they had intrauterine insemination.
Even though some of the eggs don't take, all of the eggs do take sometimes, like in this case. How about implanting 4 and hoping for 2 to take? Even if all 4 take, it's not as high-risk as having 8 embryos and then giving birth to 8 premature and extremely underweight babies. I don't think it's ethical to take the chance of having all 8 embryos take when the consequences of having them all take are detrimental.
And I wasn't suggesting that she be forced to abort some of the embryos. I was saying that selectively aborting some embryos in certain cases is possible and for the health of the other embryos.
Not only long-term health problems, but I believe that (apart from this case thus far), there are *no* recorded cases of octuplets where all the babies survived - and a lot of times, most or all of them die not long after being born.
So I really don't understand how "pro-life" it can be to refuse reduction in the case of that many fetuses - wouldn't you rather give *some* of them a good chance at surviving rather than the near-certain risk that all or most of them will die?
The doctor would have offered to "kill" some of those embryos to spare the mother and the other fetuses a lot of trouble and suffering. Ms. Suleman is very lucky that she and her octuplets survived that pregnancy. If she is the one mischaracterizing her doctor's motivations for reducing the number of embryos, shame on her.
Read the item more closely. It was the octuplets' grandmother who was quoted in the email, and she didn't speculate on the doctors' motivations. She only said her daughter "refused to have them killed," and no antecedent is quoted there for "them." For all we know she was talking of fetuses, rather than "adorable children" or something otherwise pro-life-seeming.
Because trying to protect the life of the mother and her other fetuses is totally anti-life.
I think that her decision may be more idealistic than it was practical because the pregnancy could have been very dangerous, but if she doesn't want to do reduction for her own personal reasons, I'm respecting that. "Let women make decisions about their own health" goes both ways. That being said, I agree that the doctor wasn't trying to 'kill' anyone, he was just aware of the risks and wanted to give her the option.
I didn't mean to judge the mother, but the people judging the doctors, who clearly had her and her fetuses' best interests in mind.
Regarding the accusation "so much for objective journalism": Is sending out an email journalism? (I am not saying it necessarily isn't but am curious in this instance.) To whom was the email sent?
I don't think sending out an email is journalism, but I do think it goes against journalistic ethics to send out (this was part of a mass email, a publicity email) something like this with a subject line that is clearly not just subjective - but offensive and false.
That's an LA Times employee doing work on the paper's behalf - that's what irks me about it.
As a journalistic, I don't believe in objectivity. I've never met people in our field who do. When we learned about objectivity issues in college, the general conclusion always was that it doesn't exist. We aren't objective because we're people, and we're close to these situations. We develop opinions about the stories we cover. What people want is the pretense of objectivity, and that just seems silly. Why pretend?
But to whom was it sent? I sometimes send what I call mass emails to my ten closest friends inviting them to dinner, so that term seems a little vague. How did y'all get a hold of the note, and what was it designed to publicize?
The obvious typographical errors in the subject line don't seem like something a journalist would let fly in an email intended to represent him in a professional capacity to a general audience, but what do I know; I'm unfamiliar with the guy's work.
I'm fairly certain it was the subject line of the email that Jessica had a problem with.
i think the main problem with the subject line besides the term used is that it's implying the doctor offered to "kill" the fetuses BECAUSE she already had 6 kids, and not because he was concerned about the health of the mother or aforementioned fetuses. :/
I know this post is more about the letter than the actual news of Nadya Suleman's giving birth, but I have to point out the hypocrisy here. There is supposedly this "Culture of Life" that Conservatives and (we thought) the baby companies like Pampers support, given that when when we heard about the McCaughey septuplets in 1997, they got tons of donations, including a house:
Yet, in Suleman's case, because she is unmarried and because she has a number of children that is outside the socially acceptable range, she is being ignored by the companies that should be giving her diapers! She, who needs it most! Here I've also posted a link to a Google page showing the headlines that read "Octuplets mom is not being showered with gifts"
aq=f&oq=octuplets%2C+pampers&fp=IdYYlQcvbJQ>
(Sorry, Fox was the first site a found.)
But when you click on the links, they take you to pages with headlines that read something like "Cash didn't motivate mom of octuplets". (So idk if they're trying to cover up the prejudice on the part of Pampers and Gerber, etc., or if they just haven't updated it yet). Nonetheless, it's glaringly obvious people don't liker her because 1)She's not married.
2)She was a career woman.
3)People like to decide for women how many children is appropriate for them (At least one to prove you're not a baby-hater, but 6 is pushing it, unless you want to be seen as one who likes having kids more than taking care of them.)
Shame on all the baby companies shunning her!
4.) She's brown.
It's absolutely true that the most of the criticism is being aimed at the woman, and generally for the wrong reasons.
I do not fear that criticizing her or the doctor's actions a slippery anti-choice slope. Dangerous medical procedures are usually regulated, as they should be. Putting eight embryos inside one uterus is potentially very dangerous to the woman's health and life and the resulting babies' health and lives. "First, do no harm." Now, this woman and her babies survived, but at what cost?
Women have the right to control the contents of their own uteruses. But old-fashioned pregnancies don't result in births of this magnitute. There is a third party involved here. Nobody has the "right" to make a doctor put eight embryos inside her, just as you or I don't have the right to make a doctor hand over an endless supply of narcotics. The doctor acted unethically, IMO, because (s)he put the woman at great risk for a medically unnecessary procedure, AND (s)he put the eight resulting babies at risk. There has been speculation that the woman is mentally ill, and if that's the case then I'm really unsettled by the doctor's actions. She already had six children in her care. If she'd had eight babies on her own, oh well; there's nothing we could or should do about that. But the doctor assisted her in putting her family in a really shitty situation. There have got to be regulations, because otherwise the doctors' only motivation is money.
however, i really believe that this woman took this risk *hoping* to have a friggin' baseball team. she has 6 kids already, so she knew that her body responded positively to treatment w/o transferring EIGHT EMBRYOS. the mccaugheys used fertility drugs because she hadn't been able to conceive w/o them.
everyone thought this story was amazing until it came out that she already had more kids than she could care for on her own, was potentially mentally ill, and seemed to have to problem putting her and her fetuses' lives at risk by KNOWINGLY DOING SOMETHING STUPID.
sorry, i think this woman earned all the criticism she's getting. and PLEASE do not give her a reality show.
Oh, if she gets a show on TV, I'm making that move to Sweden I've been fantasizing about.
Not everyone thought "this story was amazing."
Even before the information about her life situation came out, many medical professionals and medical ethicists were talking about the problems with implanting so many embryos, and stating that this was a very questionable action.
Actually you do have the right to IVF treatment, at least in cases of infertility as it is an abnormal and treatable condition.
Can I just say that you are the first person to raise the issue of race and I have heard no prior information about it previously, but it makes not one jot of difference to her irresponsibility.
I can see a few reasons why these companies might not be throwing offers at her that aren't necessarily because of who she is directly.
1) She is getting a lot of bad press, and Pampers doesn't give away diapers to families of multiples out of the goodness of their heart, they do it for publicity. If the general public hates this woman (and it would seem a lot of people don't look too fondly on her decisions), it isn't good publicity to hand her free things.
2) Maybe they think that if they keep giving every parent of multiples these freebies they will be on the leash to give all future parents the freebies. Here you are, already expecting them to give this mother of 8 (with maybe one or two older children still in diapers) a year's supply of free diapers. If a mother of one doesn't get free diapers, why should a mother of 8 who chose to have 8 embryos implanted? Her body, her choice, but it's also her responsibility to get them diapers, not Pampers. The families of multiples who received freebies before were lucky, you shouldn't expect to get those freebies just because you managed to make your pregnancy/parenting even more dangerous and costly.
Am I the only one who thinks it's bullshit for any of these people to be getting free diapers, houses, food, etc.? Why do we do this - because it's a miracle when someone has so many babies at once, right? This is crap. The Iowa septuplets were also a result of fertility drugs:
The septuplets were conceived as the result of fertility drugs. When the couple discovered that Bobbi was carrying seven infants, they declined selective reduction to reduce the number of fetuses, saying that they would "put it in God's hands". (Wikipedia)
Notice they didn't put whether they would conceive (again, they already had one child) into God hands.
Okay, my point is: we have teenage girls who weren't educated enough to avoid pregnancy - when someone says, "let's help them with some diaper money", it's welfare and they are scum for depending on MY money (huff huff huff) for THEIR baby.
When it's a woman (in CA or IA, whoever) that is having a few babies - on purpose - knowing *exactly* how many kids she's going to end up with and who must have some inkling of the cost of them all - we are supposed to take care of her in the name of christian charity.
I think the bad economy also has something to do with the hands-off approach companies are taking.
I do not think this woman deserves adulation, a TV show, mass quantities of free baby crap, or any other encouragement of this sort of behavior.
But I'm disturbed and disgusted by the attention and praise given to *any* of these huge families of multiple sets of multiples, who can only sustain their lifestyles because of the endless supply of gifts and TV deals. The Duggars, the Gosslings (or whatever their name is) - they turn themselves into a spectacle the public then fetishies and monitors like a gory car crash.
I am sick of the media promoting those lifestyles (which almost always include the long-suffering martyr of a mother who loves nothing more than popping out baby after baby). It feels awfully backlashy.
"it's welfare and they are scum for depending on MY money (huff huff huff) for THEIR baby."
I'd like anyone who takes a "MY money" for "THEIR baby" argument, whether it applies to "irresponsible" parents, underprivileged parents who can't "afford" kids (who can?), or "breeders" in general, to elaborate.
You can begin by proving how it is indeed YOUR money. Did the hospital send you a bill? Did they give you a receipt? Have your tax payments already repaid your own debt to society (e.g. 13 years of public school and maybe 4-6 years of public university) thus the difference is spent on others? You will not need SS, Medicare or Medicaid when you get older, but live off your own savings, 401(k) and private long term care insurance? You won't need or appreciate 14 future taxpayers and Medicare/Social Security contributers to take care of your aging self and your medical problems? You already know that this woman and her 14 children will not amount to much and will remain net tax burdens? Forever? What do you propose be done about such people and their children to reduce this burden on decent folk like yourself? Have you read your Margaret Sanger and her discussion of the "fit" and "unfit" and what should be done about the unfit in particular?
Have a look at how tax money is spent, before identifying "welfare" as the problem. According to my 2008 1040A Forms and Instructions, the biggest outlay (38%) is for social security, Medicare, and other retirement (p.81). Society's biggest financial burden by three to one, is people living beyond 65 or long enough to collect retirement benefits, not children, people of color or the poor. ("About 13% of total outlays were for Medicaid, food stamps, temporary assistance for needy families, supplemental security income, and related programs.") Are you as quick to condemn people's parents or grandparents for depending on YOUR money (huff huff huff) for THEIR no longer productive selves? Should people not live so long (average life expectancy when SS was created was not even 65 years), the same way people like this woman are expected not to have "too many" children?
I agree with you completely - the middle and upper classes depend on welfare, and Social Security and Medicare aren't seen as shameful. People on disability or senior citizens aren't labeled welfare queens. The point of my comment is that this is how we treat single mothers who do depend on federal aid, whereas the family with the septuplets in Iowa get a house, and the people watching it on the news say "good for them - they're gonna need it!".
I think Pampers and Gerber, etc., can donate whatever they want to families with multiple kids; my problem is that there are other families who need this assistance just as much, and that our culture treats them with disdain. Of course, as with most things, this is about an intersection of a lot of things - our discourses on race, family values, class, and gender. But to clarify my comment, until we as a society take a vested interest in ensuring that all children at least have access to basic needs, I don't feel bad about this woman, who has a system of support (her parents) and the means to get IVF, not getting free diapers.
When it's a woman (in CA or IA, whoever) that is having a few babies - on purpose - knowing *exactly* how many kids she's going to end up with and who must have some inkling of the cost of them all - we are supposed to take care of her in the name of christian charity.
Who's the elusive "we" you're talking about? Are you a Procter & Gamble shareholder? If not, how exactly do you conclude that you are somehow footing the bill when a corporation gets some PR by giving octuplets diapers?
(For that matter, who ever said anything about Christian charity being the motivator for the company?)
Maybe people want to help the children? There's more of them and they didn't have any choice in the matter.
Shame on the companies?? Seriously, the companies deserve shaming because they will not rally around an support some random irresponsible woman? Why should they support any old stranger?
Why do they deserve shaming but not her, even when this is a result of her own direct actions?
Why aren't you buying diapers and baby formula for her? Shame on you for shunning her!
It might be insensitive language, but "killing off" babies is what would have been going on. I have no outrage over the words used. I know a lot of people in the pro-choice camp don't like to use the words murder or kill for abortions, it's all about definitions. I can see someone who ends potential life killing (like when you squish a bird's egg in a nest). I also get that the pro-choice movement doesn't want it defined as such so as to lay a little emotional guilt and burden upon the lady having the abortion. But it is what it is.
Whoa. "I can see someone who ends potential life killing..." I mean, WHOA. What about all those eggs and sperm that go to waste every minute of every day all over the world? You want to talk about potential life, that's exactly what those are. I'm assuming you also condemn the majority of the population for masturbating/using birth control? And I notice that you believe those fetuses are not in all technical terms life, but "potential life." Yet it's considered "'killing off' babies."
That's what I would call an argument full of holes. The world isn't black and white, and this issue certainly isn't.
And I do believe Jessica is right in calling Mr. Malcolm out on this. It's that kind of sensationalist language that misleads people who are uninformed on the process of selective reduction and why it can be a viable option for some. He's in a position to provide facts to people - information free of bias. Although what he did isn't journalism in the technical sense of the word, it is far-reaching, and a potentially dangerous use of his influence and position as an LA Times writer.
ISTM he is using the term in a(n offensively casual) way that is not political, even if it has political ramifications. So, perhaps not taking his role as a journalist seriously in all of his emails to everybody.
But I would bet that most other journalists wouldn't blink too much at his language, because he is just being a callous ass. And that they are used to.
Also, not to be a pain Emmarie, but I think that response which equates sperm and eggs to fertilized eggs is really silly, and unscientific. Especially when you are talking post-implantation, but even before. It makes no sense. There is a tremendous material difference between the two, which everybody knows:that neither a sperm nor an egg could, through its own programming, become a person.
Not trying to discuss personhood, or anything, and neither I think was Destra. I just think it is a bad, illogical form of argument that shouldn't be used.
Jessica,
Why do you always take things out of context? It looks like this might have been Mr. Malcom writing a story. My goodness you like to blow things out of proportion.
I find two things very disturbing about this story.
One is the fact that the doctor NEVER should have reinserted all 8 embryos. Someone just wanted to be mentioned in the news, methinks. It's highly irregular and irresponsible.
The 2nd is the fact that America (in general) LOVES multi-births. But as soon as it came out that this woman was a single mother, already with 6 children, everyone hated her. Like, a rich married couple deserves to have 14 kids, but she doesn't. The way I see it, no one should have 14 kids, ever. Then again, I don't think anyone should have 6 kids either. But I'm not any more angry at her for being a single mother (& I think she also lives with her sister and mother, so it's not like she's the only adult in the house) - I'd be grossed out either way.
see, i don't think her single status or her race made people hate her. i think it's her recklessness and irresponsibility.
with the other cases (mccaugheys, gosselins, etc.), the couples had documented infertility issues, which were only overcome with medical procedures that were highly unlikely to produce such large numbers of fetuses. both the mccaugheys and gosselins needed those procedures to have their older children; the mccaugheys had a healthy singleton and the gosselins had healthy twins before having their big litters. both fertility drugs and IUI are really unlikely to produce so many viable fetuses. this woman had AT LEAST EIGHT EMBRYOS transferred, all the while KNOWING that she didn't have problems with the embryos implanting. she was ***knowingly reckless***. had she had 14 individual births, i think most people would think she was a glutton for punishment, but not the irresponsible person she's shown herself to be.
i don't think most people think that ANYONE should have 14 kids, married, wealthy, or not.
The doctor was the one who implanted the embryos. It's the doctor who should know better. If Suleman pressured the doctor into implanting a dangerous number of embryos against the doctor's professional judgment, it's the doctor who should be put on trial (literally and figuratively) here for their incompetence and unethical behavior, not Suleman.
And do you think it's possible that people in general give married couples with multiple children the benefit of the doubt (and, subsequently, a TV show)? You seem to know a lot about the Gosselins medical histories when it comes to conceiving. Did you dig this much into Suleman's medical background?
You don't think any woman should have 14 kids. So you think there should be a limit? What would you set the (social or legal) limit at?