Octuplets -- Crazily Irresponsible

John Lantos
February 4, 2009

People seem to be bending over backwards to make this seem like a semi-reasonable decision by both the mother and the doctor who transferred eight embryos.

Why???

The mother is crazily irresponsible (having 6 small children at home, nobody to help her, and having eight more is insane - it is NOT like someone choosing to have a large family and giving birth to fourteen children, one at a time, over fifteen years.) It is absolutely impossible that she could take care of these children herself. To have them is absurdly, obviously, parental negligence.

A doctor who transfers 8 embryos - regardless of the woman's social situation - is professionally negligent - putting the woman and the embryos at risk. It violates professional standards for IVF, violates the best interests of the babies-to-be, and violates the doctor's fiduciary responsibility to take care of the woman's health.

The woman should have been sent for counseling, not IVF. The doctor should lose his license.

Link:

Octuplets, 6 Siblings, and Many Questions
Randal C. Archibold
Whittier Journal
February 3, 2009

A bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, Arthur L. Caplan, said the case posed thorny ethical questions, including whether a doctor should have accepted Ms. Suleman for fertility treatment considering she already had six children and the costs of caring for 14 offspring.