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23 June 2009
If I had eight children, I would be ACTIVELY trying to prove that I was an unfit mother. →[More:]Sorry, I've not even been watching Jon and Kate Plus Eight on any sort of regular basis, but this marital breakdown seems REALLY predictable...
What really gets me about them is the constant moaning about how intrusive the media is in their lives. I don't mean to be victim-blaming, but jeez, their family is a reality show. They filmed something like 100 episodes in two years, which is kind of insane.
The weird thing is that I watch TV, I at least glance over entertainment news, and still I know shit about this couple other than they're getting a divorce.
I thought fertility treatments were for people who couldn't have any children, along with being price prohibitive. Am I the only one in the world who thinks that there should be a law that fertility treatments should not be available with anyone who has at least one healthy child?
But AMA standards would go over just fine; doctors could just agree to not offer them to fertile patients. Unfortunately, doctors stand to make money from fertility treatments and there's no standing in the way of greed.
you're right and i take that back mullacc, particulary because i'm prochoice extreme. i just think there should be some serious hoops one has to jump through to be able to be fertilized with 5-8 children after one has 1-3 already. this kind of environment isn't good for anyone unless you are angelina jolie.
This is one of those things where normally-understanding people take the opportunity to feel morally superior to people who made different decisions. My mother was one of 7 kids born "the normal way" - to a good Catholic mother who didn't believe in birth control and didn't really have the resources to care for all of them.
I know that to some extent Jon and Kate were "asking for this", but that doesn't mean we have to give in to our baser urges.
there should be a law that fertility treatments should not be available with anyone who has at least one healthy child?
Well, meet my internet friend Julie, who conceived one relatively healthy baby using IVF and then another with the help of an egg donor. Why should Julie be denied the joy of two relatively healthy boys?
There are so many misconceptions about "fertility treatments". The cases where a woman has a set of more than twins nowadays is rare. It's just that the rare ones get a lot of media attention, while the couples who happily conceive one or two children (and the couples who unhappily spend thousands of dollars out-of-pocket with no success) get little attention at all.
I'm happy to say I actually have no idea of who these people are. I could tell you more than you'd want to know about tabloid news in the UK, though...
muddgirl, you're right. And I didn't mean to come across as morally superior, just sympathetically exhausted. I watch the show every now and then, and I just can't imagine having the fortitude to keep up with that many small children; I'd have run out screaming a looooong time ago.
I wish it was that in this world we all could fall back on common sense muddgirl, and clearly in the situation of your friend, there would be the option of fertility treatments. I did indeed word that a bit more severely than I indended and I aplogize, perhaps prohibit is not the right slant that should have been inferred.
That being said, I personally feel that someone wanting to have 5-8 children at one time with the help of fertility treatments after they already have children, shouldn't. That medical attention should be reserved for people who, I assume like your friend, desires to fill her family in a reasonable manner. However, yeah I still hold that I thought fertility treatments were for unfortunate folks who couldn't even have one. I don't know what's reasonable nor what's the golden number and I admit that. However society determines the norm by its deviants, and the conversation was on Jon and Kate so I was sounding my clumsy and rather uninformed opinion.
That being said, I personally feel that someone wanting to have 5-8 children at one time with the help of fertility treatments after they already have children, shouldn't.
From what I recall, Jon and Kate didn't want to have septuplets. They had two kids and wanted another, so they did the fertility treatments and BAMN 6 BABIES.
Normally I understand, they utilize many fertilized eggs and implant them into the womb, allowing for nature to cull off any that might not be viable. Doctors then take medical action to limit down the remaining excess fertilized embryos. Too many children at one time can indeed be a major medical danger for both mother and childrend, indeed one is a body-changing event. Jon and Kate clearly made a decision to forgo the last part of the general cycle in order to have 6 kids, no?
The United States does not have an "overpopulation" problem, so masking moral outrage with some utilitarian concern rings a little false.
Like TPS said, in most cases where fertility treatments lead to multiple births, it is not due to parental desire but to cost-conscious doctors who transfer several fetuses at once, thinking to improve the odds for a successful pregnancy on the first or second try, and to parents who will not selectively abort fetuses for one reason or another. I really, truly don't see the difference between refusing abortion for several fetuses at once and refusing abortion for several fetuses one after the other, as many Catholic and Mormon families do.
Doctors then take medical action to limit down the remaining excess fertilized embryos.
Forgot to preview. This is called "selective abortion" and many families personally take exception to such a procedure. I'm not one of them but I believe in their right to make that choice.
Normally I understand, they utilize many fertilized eggs and implant them into the womb, allowing for nature to cull off any that might not be viable. Doctors then take medical action to limit down the remaining excess fertilized embryos.
You're talking about IVF there, with embryo transfer. It's actually not as common as maybe people think (media hype) to find doctors who will transfer (not implant, the embryos implant themselves) that many embryos.
It's irrelevant to this story anyway because from reading the wiki entry on the family it looks like the woman took clomid or some other procedure that doesn't involve actually doing stuff in a test tube and then putting the embryos back in. The 6 embryos is just what she got with the ovarian hyperstimulation.
(I may be wrong, but mainly wanted to point out that she didn't necessarily get that many embryos transferred back in.)
Oprah's website has an excerpt from their book. It looks like they told the fertility doctor they were against abortion/selective reduction from the start, and no one (according to their account) was really expecting six eggs to be inseminated.
Just weeks later, Jon and I sat in a cheerfully decorated office anxiously awaiting the results of my latest set of injections. To our immense relief, our doctor happily reported that by all indications, it was a great cycle. We spent a few moments going over our next steps in the process, which initially would be an ultrasound to determine exactly how many mature follicles had developed.
As at every single meeting, Jon and I expressed on the one hand our serious reservations about the possibility of multiples, and on the other hand our desire for the doctor to fully understand our unwavering position on selective reduction. Selective reduction, in my opinion, is the politically correct term for the process by which a fetus is injected with a lethal dose of potassium chloride, which mercilessly silences forever the rhythmic beats of its tiny heart. Jon and I believe that every life, whether seconds old after conception or a full forty-week term, robustly healthy or horribly sick, fully developed or severely challenged—every life is designed and ordained from God. We would therefore never consider choosing to end that life in any way at any time. Period.
At the scheduled ultrasound on a sunny Sunday morning, the doctor was thrilled. He discovered three mature follicles and possibly even a fourth follicle with the potential to still mature. While Jon and I had that night-before-Christmas kind of anticipation, we were still concerned that all four follicles would somehow be fertilized. Up until that point, when we spoke of multiples, we basically had been referring to the possibility of twins. That was what we had experienced, and so that was our reality. Never did we ever really allow our minds to fully wrap around the idea of multiples turning into more than twins. As if reading our thoughts, our doctor was quick to reassure us that statistically it would be very unlikely that all four or even three of the follicles would be fertilized. He also was completely thorough in giving us an escape route if we so chose. We could simply discontinue the injections and repeat the process in two months, aiming for enough but not too many follicles.
It goes on to say that they decided to go with that cycle, and then after the eggs were fertilized (which, as others have said, happened in utero, not in vitro) discovered that they had multiples.
I really, truly don't see the difference between refusing abortion for several fetuses at once and refusing abortion for several fetuses one after the other, as many Catholic and Mormon families do.
To me, a compelling difference is that a pregnancy of multiples is far more likely to result in premature births, low birthweight, a bunch of other complications. You are more likely to completely lose the pregnancy. Of course, there are risks involved in selective reduction as well.
Also, apparently, their two older kids were twins from fertility treatments as well. So it's not "fertile couple decides to have six more kids," it's "couple dealing with infertility (and against abortion) use fertility treatment for one kid, end up with twins, decide they want one more kid, end up with six."
Jon and I believe that every life, whether seconds old after conception or a full forty-week term, robustly healthy or horribly sick, fully developed or severely challenged—every life is designed and ordained from God.
God has some pretty choice things to say about divorce, too...
I seems to me that Kate is getting a worse treatment by the press than Jon is. of course, that's typical in celebrity divorce cases. An opportunity to trot out every example of the wife being less than perfectly devoted to hearth and home.
masking moral outrage with some utilitarian concern rings a little false.
Hey, that's cool, you're calling me a liar just to win some invented argument about other people, under normal circumstances I'd say fuck you, but you seem to really care about putting me on some side or other, so I'll just say congratulations, nice work. Being a winner when you're the only team on the field is special, savor it.
I seems to me that Kate is getting a worse treatment by the press than Jon is.
I disagree. He was the one who had pictures and detailed write-ups of his dancing around town (with the brother of his girlfriend talking about all the sex Jon and the gf were having).
An opportunity to trot out every example of the wife being less than perfectly devoted to hearth and home.
Are you seriously defending her? I'm sorry, but no, she's a crazy person, and I think she's not even getting all of what she deserves. Of course, a martyr can never get all of what they deserve, because they're able to spin it as "oh, poor poor pitiful me".
Calm down, Hugh. I'm not calling you a liar. I'm asking you to seriously think about your argument for one second. The Gosselin family is a drop in the bucket when it comes to world population levels. There are serious and valid concerns about overpopulation, but criticizing a relatively affluent family for having more than two children doesn't seem like it's going to help anything.
I'm sorry, but no, she's a crazy person, and I think she's not even getting all of what she deserves.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. I don't know Kate Gosselin and neither does anyone else. From her coverage she seems overworked and perhaps even unfit to be a mother of 8. But crazy?
I'm not defending either Jon or Kate. I don't know anything about them besides what I see in the tabloids. It's a sucky situation for the whole family but that doesn't make Kate OR Jon a monster like they are portrayed.
All I'm saying is, you can't have it both ways. You don't get to invite cameras and the media into your home, and then complain that you don't have any privacy and that everyone is judging you. Both of them love to complain about that stuff, but they're the ones that started it all- and they're the one who could stop it. But do they? No, they're duking it out in the tabloids. This is a couple with 8 children, this isn't like Speidi where there aren't any victims to the stupidity. Perez is saying that TLC is halting production on the show- pleeeease let that be true.
criticizing a relatively affluent family for having more than two children doesn't seem like it's going to help anything.
Wait, what? The affluent are exactly the ones who should be criticized for contributing to overpopulation. 8 Americans probably use more resources than a couple of dozen people from a less-developed country.
I think it's funny that Jon got hairplugs for the front of his head, and now he's going bald in the back. Do hairplugs fall out at some point like normal hair does?
I think I'm about to cross the line of being an ass here just by pushing the conversation and I apologize.
I didn't see anything wrong with what Hugh said about AMA standards and overpopulation... I'm not sure where the supposition that he was being morally superior by expressing these statements comes from. I think maybe it's difficult to read text always the way it's intended. I read them as kind of neutral statements.
Jon and I believe that every life, whether seconds old after conception or a full forty-week term, robustly healthy or horribly sick, fully developed or severely challenged—every life is designed and ordained from God.
I really do not want to start any trouble (*hands up, backs away slowly*) but is this kind of moral assertion appears to me inconsistent with someone who supports actively also thwarting 'God's plan' by fertilizing those who under 'God's original design' could not give birth. Am I expressing this right? Of course we're just getting into dogma here and as previously stated I'm a firm pro-choice card carrying member and will *never* change my opinion on that but claiming that aborting fetuses because they were meant to be a life under God's plan and then supporting the creation of life utilizing science when a person was born predisposed to be infertile... doesn't that seem contradictory?
I think holding on to the general tenet of "You can make whatever reproductive choices you want, provided that you let me make whatever reproductive choices I want" is a good thing here. People make contradictory choices all the time, and I think that's normal and human and fine. It's when they start trying to make other people follow their contradictory or arbitrary choices that things start getting wacky.
I don't particularly like the idea of having sextuplets by artificial insemination, especially when the justification has to do with the family's religious beliefs, but I absolutely support their right to do so. I'm uncomfortable with all the judging that has gone on in the media with regards to their number of children and their parenting abilities (and all the "Kate is such a bitch omg !!111").
The only thing I'm willing to call them on is the hypocrisy of turning their family into a reality show and then complaining about media intrusiveness. Also, I'm not a big fan of all the "oh, we're a normal family" stuff when contrasted with the fact that they have a ton of off-camera helpers (chefs, babysitters, housecleaners, etc.) and that the kids have clearly gotten very used to having cameras around constantly.
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