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Nov. 25, 2009
Daniel Pipes: Islamism 2.0
JWisdom.com: No God … No You! Know God, Know You! with Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (8 minutes)
Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Feb. 3, 2009 / 9 Shevat 5769

And Baby Makes 14

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The morning TV chats shows were chockablock with beaming doctors last week telling the birth story of the second set of octuplets in American history. "Good Morning America" was just brimming with exclamations of joy and wonderment at the successful live delivery of eight premature infants. Mike von Fremd reported live from the California hospital and Diane Sawyer interviewed two from the team of doctors who performed the delivery. Everyone was wreathed in smiles.


But while the safe delivery of any baby is cause for thanksgiving, this tendency by the press to create celebrities of parents who give birth to multiple babies is utterly misbegotten.


It would be different if this were a natural occurrence. But it very rarely is. Data from the late 19th century, long before the era of fertility drugs, found that twins occurred roughly once in 87 births, triplets once per 7,103 births, and quadruplets once in 757,000 births. Quintuplets were not even reported. But fertility drugs have now made multiple births far more common — and medical science has made it possible for more and more of these severely premature infants to survive. It's wonderful if they survive, and even more wonderful if they are healthy. But in a multiple birth involving more than two babies, the risk of early death and a host of medical and psychological problems — from cerebral palsy to learning disabilities — skyrockets. Assisted reproduction technology available, if used properly, can dramatically reduce the odds of multiple births. When a woman finds herself pregnant with so many at once, it's a failure of assisted reproduction, not a triumph.


A few days after the octuplets' birth, news about their mother began to leak out. We have learned that Nadya Suleman, 33, is a single, unemployed woman who already has six children between the ages of 2 and 7 (one of whom suffers from autism). The father of her new brood is reportedly a friend who donated his sperm, and Suleman is said to be hoping that Oprah Winfrey will pay her $2 million to appear on her program.


Maybe the party was premature.


Ms. Suleman was probably poorly served by whatever doctor agreed to transfer so many embryos into her uterus at once — though it isn't altogether clear how many were transferred. It is possible (though rare — one in 250) for one or more embryos to spontaneously divide and form identical twins. Still, in all likelihood, too many frozen embryos were transferred. Her mother (none too happy apparently at the added burden of all these grandchildren) told the press that her daughter had used embryos from previous in vitro attempts. Also according to the grandmother, when it became clear that so many babies were developing, the fertility doctor had advised Suleman to "selectively" abort some of them to improve the chances for the others. This, for understandable reasons, she declined to do. It is a stain on the assisted reproduction industry that any parent is ever asked to make such a choice — to kill one child for the sake of another.


Still, if her fertility doctor ill-served her, so did her society, by treating childbearing as a kind of self-expression. "She was obsessed with having children since she was a teenager," we learned from her friends. Well, fine. But she was clearly not obsessed with creating the proper environment in which to raise children. That environment would include, just for starters, a husband. An income would be nice as well, as would her own home.


But movie and sports stars don't do those things, nor even members of Congress these days. Consider Rep. Linda Sanchez, who represents the district in which Suleman lives. She announced last November that she is pregnant, though single. "I don't know how it'll be received," Sanchez told the Los Angeles Times. "I hope people will recognize that to be able to plan that in your life — I don't think that marriage and childbirth are black and white. There are certain instances in which you have to do things in reverse order." Yes, well, she needn't have worried. Everyone was totally understanding. No marriage yet either.


People think the old stigma about unwed childbearing was all about sex. It wasn't. It was about children and what's best for them. Of course some women want babies the way others crave shoes, but babies are not, or at least shouldn't be treated as, consumables. Badly done all around.

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