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Allen,

Does it matter whether the parents have the personal means to raise the children or whether the taxpayers will be paying for it? After all, if Bill and Melinda Gates had decided to have 14 children, that would be totally their business--especially in this country. Some of us might shake our heads in wonder about the need for so many Gates children, but other than taking up space and using earth's resources, they would not be a burden on society. Given my own financial situation, keeping the DNA of my family line going through two children seemed about right all the way round. If those parents can deal--on their own--with all those children, I guess more power to them.

It will be interesting to hear the mother's reasoning for wanting to have her seventh child. Did their family seem "incomplete" somehow? She obviously can't use the "oops" unplanned pregnancy argument.

And I also wonder about her need to have medical intervention to become pregnant (after already having 6 kids!) and how those huge hospital bills will be paid. Did the medical staff/hospital already know that taxpayers would foot the bill? Or are they written off as publicity somehow?

In this country, everybody can do whatever they want because...guess what? If they can't pay, you will! This is why a welfare state ultimately will fail. Speak of the devil....

I'm with Jack. If the kids are on her dime, she can spawn like a fish for all I care. I'm going to go out on a limb, however, and hypothesize that that's probably not the case here.

Karen, you don't work on Wall Street, do you? Writing off an expense means precisely that someone else will pay for it.

From a financial support standpoint, I am inclined to agree. But what about the capacity to handle all that parenting from an emotional standpoint?
Adoption agencies screen in this manner, don't they?

That whole "choice" thing has its drawbacks, doesn't it? If we can choose to terminate on a whim, why would anyone deny this woman the right to replace a few of the thousands of aborted children? With some women having multiple abortions, this woman has simply risen to the task.

As far as I'm concerned, the emotional side is her own business. Adoption is slightly different in that biological parents give up their own children to an agency under certain obligations and conditions: the agencies are acting in the interest of a child entrusted to them. If it's your own kid, I don't see the state as having any say in the matter except insofar as it may be forced to subsidize the situation. I agree that the doctors shouldn't have implanted eight, but I don't see where that decision should be regulated either.

Eight babies reminds me of the five babies born back in the 20-30's. The girls were dressed up paraded around, used in freak show county fair exhibits used as a marketing tools. 6 babies are regularly paraded to TV to be interviewed due the morning channels need human interest stories and pays a stipend to the parents. Journalists do not understand the hard cost showing the rainbow rather than cost and effect leads fools into reckless behavior. Christine