Feb 06 2009
The mother’s side
The mother of those octuplets talks to the media.
[h/t Maclean's]
__________________________
Rebecca adds: It’s surreal. Where to start?
One tiny detail of the story: there is a daycare at the university that she hopes to use while finishing her Masters in counselling. There is a very well regarded daycare that a lot of my friends have used at a nearby community centre: for the four infant spaces (infant being between 12 week and 18 months) they have a waiting list of 150 babies. And she’s under the impression that she’ll be able to find, never mind pay for, fourteen spaces?
“I wanted to be a mother” – yes, of course, what could be more natural than to want to be a mother, and since (it’s implied) her fertility problems are linked to an injury, how much worse to feel that your ability to become a mother has been violently taken away from you? But at what point do we have to move beyond the wants of individual adults, and think about the babies?
___________________________
Patricia says: The throwaway question “you knew you weren’t going to selectively reduce?” was a nice touch, I thought. It provides a chilling insight into the world of assisted reproduction. As the mother goes through her story, the interviewer just wants to make sure she’s got the process right: the mother had implanted multiple embryos and she didn’t plan on killing even a few of them. Without batting an eye, the mother acknowledges that the “selective reduction”/killing step was not part of her plan and continues on with her story. Implicit in the whole exchange is a complete acceptance that that step would be a completely normal response to the possibility of such a multiple birth, but it just didn’t work for this mother.
I wonder how they decide which babies to “selectively reduce”? Does the doctor review that decision with the parents?
Related posts:
- Mother wrongly convicted of infanticide is acquitted Share My goodness, what a horrible mistake to make. After...
- Connecting the dots would be politically incorrect Share So that’s why I’ll post this item about Canada’s...
- Now that’s a very good question Share Apparently Prime Minister Harper is concerned about reducing maternal mortality. Good....
- Now it’s a legacy Share Hey, I suppose that’s good news. Liberal “leader” Michael...
