It is a very curious case.
But I wonder what the problem is, exactly. Is it that the mother lacks the means to bring them up? In that case, would we have the same reaction were she a millionaire? Is it that we think she must be somehow mentally ill? There's no independent evidence for that.
Besides - on both scores, there's no reason to think that the kids won't have lives worth living, so they've not been harmed in any way by being brought to birth.
The more I think about it, the more I find it a bit hard to see exactly what's wrong here.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:10,
Reply)
My concern would indeed be funding.
But then, I object to people begging (ala, a professional website with a donate button). Maybe I'm a hypocrite.
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Bats, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:12,
Reply)
Hmmm.
But then that raises an uncomfortable question - would you allow IVF to someone to have one child if you thought money was an issue? If not, that seems to imply that it's not the number that counts, so much as poor people breeding. And if that's the case, then the same would presumably apply to the naturally-reproducing as well. And that seems a bit itchy.
The point stands, too, that the kids are still overwhelmingly likely to have a life worth living, so they aren't going to be better off never having been born either way.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:16,
Reply)
In the end, it's a personal decision.
I wouldn't inflict my judgment on someone else who wanted a child. It wasn't the woman's idea to have eight; it happened. If a woman is able to go through the pain and the expense of IVF for her child(ren) then that's her prerogative, not mine.
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Bats, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:20,
Reply)
The Grandmother is raising the first 6 kids and has said that her daughter has lost the plot
she can't cope with her first ones (all 6 of which are crammed in to two small bedrooms), how is she going to deal with 8 more?
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HappyToast Groat froth, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:19,
Reply)
OK - that's a consideration
BUT... we don't know enough yet. Did the doctors who did the implantation know this? And, even if they did, does it count as a sufficient reason not to carry out the procedure? There are plenty of people who're suboptimal parents; the point stands that the kids are still better off existing than not existing.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 12:23,
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How do you reach the conclusion
that anybody is "better off" existing than not existing? Do you seriously rate life that highly?
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somegreybloke, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 14:13,
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^^^^^^^^^^THIS
And that's not the first time I've asked it.
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crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 15:04,
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what's wrong
is that she created people and people are shit.
In other, more rational, objections - this whole ethical thing you do where you say that children have "not been harmed in any way by being brought to birth" seems to be based on the idea that everyone has a tolerable life by default or that existing is better than not existing. I disagree.
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crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 12 Feb 2009, 15:03,
Reply)