February 28, 2009
Hi Cathy.
Thanks for your thoughts. All valid points. Congratulations on managing your family by yourself. You should be very proud of yourself. I mean that in every sense of the word.
I put this out here because we have been getting many comments that are not postable but that border on this same theme.
There is a fundamental difference with this woman that seems to be forgotten.
She chose to have these children when she could not support or care for any of them. She knew that 100%. Absolutely 100%. She knew she did not possess the means to provide for the 6 and yet she went ahead and implanted 6 more. And, although she admitted she knew that it could have been more than one, it would be the same if it resulted in just one child.
It is made heinous but the fact that it resulted in 8.
“Would you abort fetuses, if you found out you were carrying more than you planned for?”
“Planned for” being the operative words. She planned for nothing except the implantation - and she planned, from the moment those embryos were manufactured, that she was going to implant every single one of them - no matter what the pregnancies resulted in - and she did just that. She admitted that on her RadarOnline video with her mother. She didn’t mean to - she tried to catch herself - but she said it. She also waffled as to whether she would have more.
Please watch that video with your own maternal eyes. It’s the body language mother & grandmother link below.
She intentionally got pregnant.
There is no comparing this to any natural pregnancy of any sort. Natural pregnancies happen. They happen even when one is practicing contraception. They happen when one is trying. But there is always an element of the unknown and they always involve the Hand of God.
Her pregnancy was caused through the hand of an unethical physician.
I just don’t know how to get this across any more clearly - how very wrong it was - how abusive - YES, 100% ABUSIVE - to the children she already had.
Please do not answer this. It is just something to think about to yourself to get some maternal perspective on this case. If your son with autism was your third or fourth child, would you have chosen - 100% intentionally chosen - to have 3 or 4 more?
If 3/6 children were neurologically disabled - no matter how mildly - would you go to a IVF facility and 100% intentionally implant more embryos?
Even one?
Why?
How would it benefit the six you already had and could not support?
Whose needs would it be filling?
Whose needs would it be neglecting?
That is the fundamental difference.
I presume your children were all naturally conceived, so that even if you were trying to conceive, you could not be 100% certain that intercourse would result in pregnancy.
By walking into that IVF facility, she intended to get pregnant. She may not have known how many, if any, would result - but she had the clear intent to bring at least one more mouth into this world to feed, clothe, bathe, love, educate and shelter, when she could not do that with the 6 she already had. And from the grandmother’s own words - she and the grandfather are the primary caregivers both physically and financially.
There exists no explanation on the planet that makes that ok.
None.
Period.
She intentionally and with forethought and malice walked in there and got implanted with 6 embryos because she was fulfilling her dream of having a large family when she was already unable to care for the other six.
That is premeditated child neglect.
And, it is premeditated welfare fraud.
It is the clear premeditation of her act that makes this case incomparable to any other case.
You bring up the other families with multiples and how they have not been attacked.
First of all, all of them had parents - all of them had a father - all of them knew that at least there would be two sets of hands responsible for the children.
In this case, not. And that was a known fact. 100% known.
There is nothing obliging the grandparents to stick around. The GF says he’s going back to his native Iraq to make money and the GM says she’s going to visit her sister in Europe. There is no legal obligation for them to stay as there would be with a father. As far as I know - sperm donors are not financially responsible
How would you have felt if the parents of the McCaughey septuplets would have gone back for “just one more”? Compare her reaction when asked if she was going to have any more with this mother. They were completely different - one based in maternal reality, one not.
How many families of any means go back and have a sixth round of IVF after they already have 6 children?
Has there ever been such a case? I don’t know. Prior to this what was the most family a mother had via IVF?
IVF is not meant for baby production because the mother “always wanted a big family”. It is meant for infertile couples, who are unable to conceive through natural means. Whether or not they have more is dependent on their individual situations - the first being whether they can provide for them. This women’s intent from the start was to use every last embryo to maximize production - regardless of the number, the status of the already born children’s health or her ability to provide for them.
She said it with her words and it was born out in her actions.
If one says she was not able to understand the ramifications of her actions, that she wasn’t thinking clearly or didn’t consider the possibilities of multiple births, then one is saying she has poor judgment. And the mere fact that she could not think through her actions and still doesn’t get it is proof that she is an unfit mother, if only psychologically.
But 14 children’s lives are resting on that unsound judgment and that is why someone has to step in.
It is black and white by the mere fact of intent.
Had she been having intercourse - even if she was trying - there exists an element of chance.
That could be considered irresponsibility.
But what she did was criminal.
And there is no way around it.
Period.
I can tell you from my experience, having been at the bottom of a double digit family, how little personal attention a child gets. But it is the older children who suffer the most. Their experience was worse than anything I or the siblings younger than me had. They were never given a choice. They never had a chance to be children. They were never free of responsibility. No matter where they were or what they did. Their younger siblings always figured into the mix. Their childhood and youth were highjacked and that, by definition, is child neglect, whether it is intentional or a by-product of the Pope’s teachings.
And that is why I am speaking out for those six children. No matter their existence thus far, their fates will be sealed if those octuplets go home with that mother. None of them will have a childhood, especially the oldest girl, who has already had to help, for her entire life, her special siblings. They have always had to come first.
When asked, the older children said they did not want the octuplets. That should tell you something and it should count for something. And I can tell you the resentment will continue to build and it is a resentment that never goes away.
My siblings and I were healthy and able to care for each other, none of us needed intense therapy to cope with the world through a special mind, my mother and father were able to financially support, educate, feed and house us, and most importantly of all, we all came about through natural means and by the Lord’s hand. There was never a 100% premeditated certainty.
Now imagine if every one of those octuplets end up having special needs.
What is that oldest girl’s life going to be like?
Right now she still has a chance to be a kid - once those 8 children enter that house - that chance has been forever stolen from her.
There is no other way to look at it. It is reality - her reality.
Why aren’t people focusing on that?
The octuplets are a blank slate. The siblings have not even met them. They have said they don’t want them. That woman has not bonded with them - in fact she is completely detached from them - her words reveal that.
Why not allow them to be adopted? Why not allow them to have a full chance? Why not allow 8 couples and their extended families experience the immense joy of loving and caring for a child that they otherwise would not be able to do? Especially a child who might have a life of physical and cognitive struggles ahead of them?
Is there anyone out there who doesn’t think one child with a mother and father has a better chance than 14 children with that mother?
Why not allow those six children, in particular, the oldest girl, to have a life?
Don’t their lives and well-being count?
Discuss the medical ethics, the morality, the impact on society, the mother’s irresponsibility, lack of judgment and delusional madness, but do not neglect the older children who have already been neglected.
If those octuplets are sent home - their fates will be sealed.
Forever.
***
(1-30) Octuplets: Ethics of fertility treatment?
(1-30) Octuplets: What is really going on?
(2-9) Octuplets: Should not go home with that woman
(2-9) Octuplets: Octuplets: already filthy house unfit for children (pix)
(2-23) Octuplets: Mother vs grandmother caught on tape
(2-24) Octuplets: Cosmetic surgery, IVF, food stamps, disability, bankruptcy & foreclosure
(2-24) Octuplets: Mother before/after plastic surgery & Angelina Jolie (pix)
(2-25) Octuplets: Grandfather on Oprah: daughter “not mentally complete”
(2-25) Octuplets: Hospital questioning her ability to care for children
(2-26) Octuplets: Video of inside the home
(2-26) Octuplets: Body language mother vs grandmother video (Part 1)
(2-26) Octuplets: Body language mother vs grandmother video (Part 2)
(2-27) Octuplets: Man claiming to be sperm donor
(2-27) Octuplets: Grandmother on The Early Show (Part 1)
(2-27) Octuplets: Grandmother on The Early Show (Part 2)
(2-27) Octuplets: Grandmother on The Early Show (Part 3)
(2-27) Octuplets: Grandmother’s first interview (Feb 9th)
