Is Fertility Part of the Abortion Conversation?
The question I have for anyone opposed to Nadya Suleman's multiple births is: are you "pro-life" or "pro-choice?"
(While I detest these framings, it's the current ones people are most familiar with, so until someone can come up with something more creatively accurate, they'll have to do.)
It's like the more this woman speaks, the more people hate her. Suleman's received death threats. She's being mocked by neoconservatives. Reality show programmers, who'll make a show about anything, don't want to come near her. Even her publicist bailed on her.
Granted, some have used this story as an opportunity to debate in vitro fertilization, but the majority would rather bash Suleman as the Greatest Drain on American Resources.
The way I see it, the only group with a legitimate gripe are those who believe that there should be a limit to how many kids a woman should have. If we look at the traditional arguments in regards to having children, we see that neither the "pro-life" nor the "pro-choice" crowd can completely own this particular issue:
Much like the Republicans who found themselves stumbling over the Terri Schiavo issue, I don't have an answer on how to handle any future Ms. Sulemans who may be coming down the road. I do know that as long as we keep trying to prescribe the same black-and-white responses to a world that's becoming grayer by the moment we're never going to progress as a people.
(While I detest these framings, it's the current ones people are most familiar with, so until someone can come up with something more creatively accurate, they'll have to do.)
It's like the more this woman speaks, the more people hate her. Suleman's received death threats. She's being mocked by neoconservatives. Reality show programmers, who'll make a show about anything, don't want to come near her. Even her publicist bailed on her.
Granted, some have used this story as an opportunity to debate in vitro fertilization, but the majority would rather bash Suleman as the Greatest Drain on American Resources.
The way I see it, the only group with a legitimate gripe are those who believe that there should be a limit to how many kids a woman should have. If we look at the traditional arguments in regards to having children, we see that neither the "pro-life" nor the "pro-choice" crowd can completely own this particular issue:
- Pro-Lifers: Why should those who oppose abortion in all it's forms object? Suleman chose life and had the children. You can't label her as a "welfare queen" without acknowledging that she should have the option of aborting her offspring.
- Pro-choicers: Why should those who favor choice object? This is her body and she made her decision. Whether you think she should have had two children as opposed to eight shouldn't be an issue unless you believe that certain women aren't capable of making such a choice.
Much like the Republicans who found themselves stumbling over the Terri Schiavo issue, I don't have an answer on how to handle any future Ms. Sulemans who may be coming down the road. I do know that as long as we keep trying to prescribe the same black-and-white responses to a world that's becoming grayer by the moment we're never going to progress as a people.
Comments
That's far different from say a woman who has six children getting pregnant by conventional means.
But Ms. Suleman is purposely setting out to be a mother of multiple children outside the ordinary means in which you usually find that.
Sure, there are traditionalist Catholics and Protestants with 8 kids, but usually it's a mother and father with a supporting church community and a stable financial environment.
Ms. Suleman purposed to have multiple kids outside the covenant of marriage. That's not in the traditional pro-life ethic.
This is a far cry from say a teenage mother who is facing an unwanted pregnancy due to a night of heated passion sans contraceptives. This is a woman in her 30s who deliberately sought to bring 8 kids into the world without a father and with 6 other children to care for.