Iowa Seven, Houston Eight: a Difference

Were the babies the wrong color? How else to explain that the birth of white septuplets last year was widely celebrated as a “miracle” while what had been the world’s only living octuplets have been treated, in the words of a Seattle Times editorial, as “a little like a practical joke.”

“The latest drug-induced litter of human pups is even larger than the Iowa septuplets, clocking a world record at eight,” the editorial stated. “But this time, the gee-whiz factor is gone; there are too many new names to learn.”

C’mon, it’s only one more name, but is it that African names are too difficult? Or are the newborns paying the price for what may be a less-than-perfect father facing an assault charge? And since when are babies “pups”?

It’s not just one newspaper. Whatever the reason, the decline in wonderment and concern this time around is startling. Whereas the media trumpeted every burp in the septuplets’ lives as proof of a miracle to an eagerly expectant world, one is hard pressed to find any news of the black babies, the smallest of whom died Sunday.

Now the emphasis of the reporting is on the cost--an estimated $250,000 per child--to get through the first year of life and the dim life prospects for children of large multiple births. Medical ethicists are weighing in with a vengeance about the irresponsibility of this last turn of the fertility dice. Suddenly there are calls for government regulation.

On the assumption that the sudden alarm over fertility industry excess is not of racist inspiration, it can be stipulated that there’s little we’re likely to do about it. Yes, it would seem far better for people to adopt rather than go through the contortions of induced fertility, but there are too many folks out there who want what they define as a child of their own creation. Make induced fertility illegal, and you create a profitable and more dangerous new underground economy.

It’s easy for editorial writers nationwide to demand regulation by physicians or the government of this booming and lucrative practice involving 9 million women. What they overlook is that regulation at this stage of the science might require aborting some of the fetuses.

The state of the art does not mandate the fine-tuning of fertility procedures to guarantee a number that would maximize the well-being of fetuses brought to term. The winnowing-out of fetuses requires selective abortion, and that’s a no-no because the majority leadership of Congress considers abortion for any reason murder.

Nor do pro-choice advocates have any firmer basis for asking government to intervene, since the mothers in these cases did choose. As in the case of the parents of the septuplets, the new record-setters cited religious reasons for rejecting the option of aborting some of the fetuses.

Once again, the proud parents, previously infertile, are bringing God into it as if this represents the inspiration of the divine rather than the more earthly bound ambitions of the $2 billion-a-year fertility industry. Indeed, the octuplets’ father, Iyke Louis Udobi, a Nigerian-born U.S. citizen, gave his newborns names that he said paid tribute to God and stated repeatedly this was a decision made by a higher power: “I am grateful to God for the blessings he has given us with these babies.”

But if this was an example of divine intervention, it’s through a scientifically complex and risky route never suggested in the doctrine of any of the world’s known religions. And if it’s the fertility doctors who are now instruments of God, then isn’t it significant that they, almost to the last, would recommend aborting some of the fetuses as important to the health of the mother and to improve the life possibilities of the fetuses that come to term?

What we’re up against is the reality that scientific advances have mocked our pretensions to grasp eternal truths about the origins of human life. The reductionism of abortion abolitionists has stunted our ability to deal in any profound sense with ethical questions that are arising. But we now can influence the birthing process too dramatically to deny societal responsibility for what occurs.

Perhaps our unease about the spate of multiple births will initiate a more profound discussion about our obligations to the fetus once born. It must involve a recognition that while the creation of life is indeed wondrous, irrespective of race, birthing is only the beginning. It carries with it the obligation, for doctor as well as parents, to produce only what we are capable of nurturing, to reap what we have sown.