Friday, February 13, 2009

The Slippery Slope of Reproductive Rights

"It's my opinion that a woman's right to reproduce should be limited to a number which the parents can pay for," Charles Murray wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Daily News. "Why should my wife and I, as taxpayers, pay child support for 14 Suleman kids?"

Wow! So if I follow his logic out just a little farther will I get to the point where the state will be in my bedroom telling me to use birth control because they don't think that we can support any more children? What about the family with 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 or 11 children who is supporting themselves just fine but then tragedy strikes in the form of a job layoff? Suddenly they are at the point where they are having to choose between the mortgage payment, the electricity bill, or groceries.

"From the outside you can tell that this woman was playing the system," host Bryan Suits said on the "Kennedy and Suits" show on KFI-AM. "You're damn right the state should step in and seize the kids and adopt them out."

According to Mr Suits, where is the line that needs to be crossed before the state steps in and seizes children from families who have fallen on hard times? Maybe he's only talking about families who, in his opinion, are "playing the system". But who decides that? There are so many families with any number of children who are only one or two paychecks away from disaster.

These opinions scare the living daylights out of me. Maybe that's because I have 4 children so far and hope that we are blessed with more. In this new world of "hope and change" should I someday expect to have to apply for a permit to have another child? Will I have to justify that choice by providing tax returns for a few years to show we can afford to raise another child? And who decides the cost of raising a child? If I am to believe the media reports I've read in the last few years it will cost in the neighborhood of $250,000 to raise each of my children. That certainly makes me laugh! Either we live in a totally different world from the people who calculated those numbers or my poor children are completely deprived.

What I find interesting about the recent case of Ms Suleman, the mom who just gave birth to octuplets, is that it seems to be the most rabid pro-choice people who are spewing hate all over the internet. She CHOSE to give birth instead of "selectively reducing" the number of babies. She CHOSE life over death. She CHOSE to use the embryos instead of allowing them to be destroyed, used for medical testing, or donating them to another couple. As a rabid pro-life person myself, I commend her for choosing life for the babies. I'm just saddened that she put herself in that position to begin with by creating life in a petri dish.

So to answer Mr Murray's question, "Why should my wife and I, as taxpayers, pay child support for 14 Suleman kids?" Maybe because you have a vested interest in ALL children succeeding and being able to support themselves some day. Maybe because you don't want the state in your bedroom telling you whether you have permission to conceive a child. Maybe because those children didn't do anything wrong and deserve the basic human rights of a safe place to live and safe food to eat. Maybe because those children will someday make great contributions to our society. Maybe because it's just the right thing to do.

Watch THIS VIDEO and think about it.

5 comments:

Ladysopinion said...

My Grandma had ten children. Her husband died of heart failure while she was carrying the tenth child and never saw his fourth son. They were not people of means. When this tragedy struck a brother-in-law and his wife offered to take the baby. There were other offers to take a child here or there. The youngest daughter was a little over a year old when the baby was born. Grandma said NO to those offers as she would keep the family together and did not want the siblings to be split up. She loved all of her children immensely. Grandma saw that all the kids went to school, they had one cow for milk, chickens for eggs, and some land for a garden and berries and such. The older children in their teens helped with the younger ones as well. They all stuck together. Anyway, they never got any government aid or help from anyone. One year the house burned down around Christmas and what little they had for Christmas was destroyed. No one ever received government aid or became a burden on the state. She even managed once her own children were grown to help several young people with problems and no one to help them. They lived with her for a short time and she helped straighten them out and get them on the right path. She believed it was the right thing to do. Grandma lived to be in her 80's and all of her children and grandchildren and other folks (like the juvenile delinquents that she helped)loved her dearly.

Given a chance American citizens do not need the government or special interest groups (like abortionists) to poke their nose into other people's business. The majority of American citizens are very intelligent, resillient, resourceful, and hard-working and know how to help themselves and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go forward with or without help from family and friends and church organizations.

LisaMarie said...

Your grandmother was a wonderful person! How blessed you are to have such a great woman in your family teaching all of you. You're absolutely right that most of us can take care of ourselves without the govt butting in. I'm just tired of hearing on the news every night from people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that the government will save us and take care of us.

Anonymous said...

I agree that we should not need a permit to have children and that the state should not be able to forcibly take and adopt them out, BUT...

I think this woman was very irresponsible and selfish and that is why so many people are angry. She is unmarried (God's plan is for children to be created within the bonds of marriage), has no job, and no place of her own to live and deliberately chose to get implanted with six embryos when she already had six children, knowing that something like this could happen.

I honestly think this woman is mentally ill. And I think the fertility doctor who knew her situation and agreed to do IVF on her yet AGAIN is as insane as she is.

Normally I am not judgemental about the number of children one chooses to have; I enjoy watching the Duggars on TV and have five kids myself, but we are MARRIED. My husband WORKS and SUPPORTS our children. Yes, I definitely judge this situation. This is way different, IMO then someone with many children losing a husband and finding herself single, as the grandmother of the above poster did.

As far as my tax dollars going to support her children; I really do not care much about that. Of course the children are going to need support from somewhere; it isn't their fault that their mother is a dingbat.

Anonymous said...

It does scare me. I haven't followed the story closely enough to form my own opinions on this woman specifically, but the population control comments are very scary.

Anonymous said...

I think it goes back to the medical ethics. The IVF Dr was only interested in his bottom line! He didn't even have a good success record! I think she went to him because he was willing to act against conscience for the almighty dollar when she really wanted more children. It sounds like she has an addictive personality but the Dr is the one who is licensed and subject to review by his peers and losing said license if he abuses his power. I am appalled that people are attacking her and letting the Dr off the hook!

As for living "off the government", how many people could afford medical insurance if they didn't have it through an employer? Not everyone comes into this world healthy enough to never see a Dr. The cost of insurance and medical care is sky-high because it has evolved into this vicious cycle of medical establishments competing with each other for aesthetics and having the newest machine (machines are NOT care providers btw) so they can get the person with the "good" insurance so it drives up the cost in general. Then, they give a "deal" to the insurance company yet let the person who has to pay his own bill pay the lion's share. How convoluted is the logic that a person HANDING you a stack of cash pays MORE than the "company" with whom you have to "prove" your treatment and have a whole staff just to handle the paperwork and phone calls? Then if you throw in all the frivolous lawsuits with people who don't want to take responsibility for their own health into the mix, that makes it all the worse. We really have become a society of haves and have-nots. My children have medicaid and I have no guilt over it. There is NO way I could pay for even ONE child to have the medications and treatments he needs with the way ths system works. All the money I pay in taxes for things I would NEVER pay for if I had a choice help in this too. I wish I knew how to fix it some way that would make everyone happy. Until then, the corporations that thrive while making others miserable (like Walmart who likes to hire people only part-time and pay minimum wage to avoid having to pay benefits) can pick up the tab in taxation.

-Melissa