Octomom Gets Death Threats

Death threats?  People aren’t we better than this?  Well ok, some of us are.  Reuters is reporting that Nadya Suleman, has gone into hiding with her six older children because of death threats, her spokesman said on Wednesday.  If you have been off the grid for the last few weeks, Nadya is our latest disposable celebrity.  She is famous for having given birth to only the second set of living octuplets.  At first it was hailed as a triumph of modern medicine, but now we are asking, “Why don’t we give people a psychiatric evaluation and a credit check before artificially inseminating?”

Dubbed the Octomom by the NY Post, Suleman has become a flashpoint for discussions about medical care and ethics.  The Post reports that she,

…kept popping out babies even after doctors diagnosed her with paranoia, depression, wild mood swings and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

But as far as the single California mother is concerned, she’s only one kind of crazy – baby crazy.

“All I wanted was children,” she told NBC. “I wanted to be a mom. That’s all I ever wanted in my life.”

In the days since giving birth to only the second set of living octuplets ever, Suleman has been criticized for putting her own whims ahead of the interests of her children.

But to the unemployed mother who lives in the home of her divorced parents, it is those who have only two or three kids who are often the selfish ones.

“Everything I do, I’ll stop my life for them and be present with them. And hold them,” she said. “And how many parents do that? I’m sure there are many that do, but many don’t. And that’s unfortunate. That is selfish.”

Suleman says she has a plan to earn enough money to raise her 14 kids.

In the fall, when her octuplets are just over 6 months old, she plans to return to Cal State Fullerton, where she is completing a master’s in counseling, and send her children to the day-care center there, she told NBC.

“I know I’ll be able to afford them when I’m done with my schooling,” Nadya Suleman said.

Suleman had been supporting herself in part on the more than $165,000 in disability payments she collected between 2002 and 2008 for a work injury she sustained in 1999, according to workers compensation and medical records made public this week.

She contends that all 14 of her children were conceived through in vitro fertilization, and all were fathered using sperm from the same donor, whom she would identify only as “a friend.”

If she already had six kids, why on earth did her parents let her doctors break out the turkey baster again?  As a California resident, I’m not thrilled that the state will be picking up the tab for all of this medical care.  Threats of violence are never called for, but I would be in favor of the state coming in, taking the kids away, and placing them in foster care.  Because neither Nadya Suleman or her parents have shown me that they understand the enormous responsibility involved in raising children.