The Question of Octuplets

You know, this whole Mother of Octuplets thing is a bit confusing for me. The majority of opinions, it seems, is "Bad! Bad woman! Bad!" She's "irresponsible" and "selfish", "emotionally unstable", and a bad mom. She's obsessed with kids and not considering the cost. She's bad. Even Christians are saying she's bad because she's single and having children out of wedlock. Bad! She's so bad that she's even getting death threats. This 33-year-old woman, most people agree, is foolish at best and more likely evil.

I'm not convinced. The woman, Nadya Suleman, apparently considers herself a Christian. She is connected somehow to Calvary Chapel Golden Springs in Diamond Bar, California. And her reason for having these babies is simple. There were fertilized embryos (read " unborn babies") that she had brought about and she needed to see them through. She didn't believe in simply tossing them out. She believed that they would likely be mostly unviable, but she didn't believe that they should simply be terminated. They were life. In fact, before she started having children at all, while everyone else was out buying big screen TVs and living it up, she was working double shifts at the hospital and saving her money to have and care for her children.

Oh, there is an uproar now. Some of the things we're hearing are actually quite chilling. In a story from Mercury News, we read things like this:

On the Internet, bloggers rained insults on Suleman, calling her an "idiot," criticizing her decision to have more children when she couldn't afford the ones she had, and suggesting she be sterilized.

...

"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.

...

"You're [****] right the state should step in and seize the kids and adopt them out."

...

"There are 14 babies out there that for the next 20 years are probably going to need assistance from the taxpayers. There should be something in place so that this doesn't happen again," [State Sen. Sam] Aanestad said.

Maybe you're fine with that. Maybe you agree that the government should have the right to sterilize women who have had "too many" babies. Maybe you think the government should limit family sizes. Maybe you think that the government should seize the kids and give them away. Those ideas are, in my view, frightening.

It appears that the primary response of "irresponsible" and "I'm not paying for that!" is based on the notion that family sizes ought to be small and it is "irresponsible" to have a family larger than you planned to have. I wonder if Christians are aware that this is a lie, not aligned with Scripture. The Bible loves large families, and nowhere does it say, "Don't have more than you can afford." That's a "today's society" issue, not a biblical one. I think that Nadya Suleman is throwing today's "I won't have kids until I'm ready ... and maybe not then" viewpoint in their face.

Now, I do need to be clear. I am seriously disappointed by her "Why do I need a daddy for my kids?" attitude. I cannot even fathom how that works in a Christian mindset. There isn't the slightest doubt that the Bible favors father/mother/child structures for families. If a father is not available (say, he dies), then the father is replaced either with a brother of the original or the father of the mother, but father/mother/child families are what are designed. To have something "happen to you" is one thing. To intentionally set out to violate God's design is another. I understand, in fact, that the "sperm donor" for those embryos was her boyfriend who wanted to marry her, but she refused. Bad call. And she obviously doesn't care as much about how she is going to take care of her children as much as she cares about simply having them. And that whole in vitro method of having children is still a moral question mark for me.

Still, at this point I'm not entirely sure that I like the response from society better than I like what Nadya chose to do. I'm not saying it was absolutely right -- I do see problems -- but I do see a lot for which to commend her and I do see some serious problems with her detractors.