Friday, March 20, 2009

Is a free house enough, or are her 14 kids still screwed?

Try as I might to not jump on the bandwagon, I can no longer hold my tongue. I was on the treadmill at the gym last night, and there she was on CNN's Anderson Cooper, cavorting about town with a couple of her brood in tow and enjoying every moment of the lavish attention this pathetic woman so obviously craves.

We all have read, watched, or heard about Nadya Suleman, the California octuplet mom, and her fourteen children. Many view this story as a miracle of life, while others view it as an ignorant temptation by a woman who wanted a big family, and an unethical doctor in search of fame.

The truth of the matter is that this divorced, unemployed, disabled and unsupported mother, who is also a student under debt. And even though her critical, but ultimately enabling, father gave her a new $560,000+, 2,500+ square-foot house, Suleman is financially bankrupt and cannot afford her children. As a result, of Suleman’s inability to take care of her children, the government must take action, by using taxpayers’ money, to help these children survive this tragic state of affairs.

In an NBC interview by Ann Curry, Suleman claimed that she has no intention to live off of taxpayers’ money. She stated, “If I am, if it's food stamps, it's a temporary resource. And I was so reluctant. I very much so look forward to the day when I am not getting any kind of help with food stamps, which I believe will end when I graduate in about a year or year and a half.”

Sadly, Suleman’s statement is based on hope and not reality. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, for a single mom to raise a child to age 18, she will minimally spend between $118,590 and $250,260. Do the math, and that means this single mother with little financial means would have to cough up somewhere between $1,660,260 and $3,503,640 if she wanted to raise these kids on her own without the help of Daddy Government (read: taxpayer).

So who is really at fault here? Is it the mother who simply wanted to have more children, or the doctor who knew the result of his research and simply did not consider the consequences of his actions?

Unfortunately, there is enough blame to go around with everybody involved in the very sad situation. Dr. Michael Kamrava, Suleman’s physician and an embryo implantation specialist, should have assumed the consequences of his actions and advised his patient not to progress with the procedure. The mother should have considered the wellbeing of her previous six children, and now, her eight children--not to mention the millions of dollars it will cost taxpayers.

It is just plain wrong that California’s hardworking taxpayers should be the ones footing the bill for these very bad decisions made by individuals that are working the system. Taxpayers deserve better than this, and need to know that their precious dollars are being spent wisely--not for individuals who make selfish choices for their own personal gratification and gain.

Where exactly we go from here is uncertain but it is clear we need to address these ethical issues in order to prevent more tragic situations like this one from occurring—which has both huge human and financial costs.

Good Day to You, Sir

2 comments:

Don, American Idle said...

Where are the happy abortionists when we need them?

Anonymous said...

Don, this shouldn't have gone far enough to even consider abortion. Stupid, selfish people. T