Octomom Hypocrisy

3. The woman misused IVF fertility treatments and wound up with eight babies at the same time, and she has six more kids under the age of 7 at home.
Consider this: Cable news and newspapers have been flooding us with experts on how many embryos should be implanted in a woman and so on and such.  And while the cost of IVF is usually mentioned, most of these experts conveniently forget to mention how few states "force" insurance companies to pay for IVF treatment.

So the question really is how many embryos would you ask to be implanted if you had a history of miscarriages and limited funds? Odds are that you'd pick more than one; only 11 percent of IVF procedures in this country involve a single embryo. Let's remember that Jon and Kate were already the parents of twins when they rolled the fertility-treatment dice and wound up with sextuplets. That's just an order of magnitude different from Octomom.

And that's the beautiful and exasperating thing about America—our democracy gives people the freedom to have as many children as they want. All we can do is rant and rave while we watch them on TV.

4. Is the porno offer a creepy testament to her Angelina Joliefication, or what?
Consider this : We are all, each of us, one national scandal away from being offered a million dollars to star in a skin flick. Asking the iniquitous and infamous to do dirty movies is how the porn industry tries to stay relevant. Think of it as "Dancing With the Stars"—only naked.

Look, I don't like the Octomom situation either, and each new revelation shocks me all over again. Suleman, just like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, has come to symbolize the ill that arises when humans delve into the realm of creation. Hungry for knowledge, glory, fame and power, Dr. Frankenstein never paused in his quest to create life to consider the consequences of his actions, nor, it seems, did Suleman—when deciding that six was not enough.

Now we're all snickering and feeling superior, but this could be a real tragedy for at least some of those 14 children, who face lifelong emotional and physical challenges that go beyond money. Suleman should be a warning to us: by sensationalizing her, we're inviting more trivialization of the most sacred aspects of humanity. In Britain, a terminally ill woman is selling her death on a reality program. If it's ever broadcast in the U.S., we'll probably slam that woman, too. But trust me, we'll still watch.

© 2009