queerbychoice | Nadya Suleman and Bristol Palin

I'm sick of hearing religious conservatives attack Nadya Suleman for having 14 kids (including octuplets). Not because I think it's a wonderful idea to have 14 kids when you're unemployed and single and living with your parents whose house is being foreclosed on because they can't afford to support you and your kids. I don't think this is particularly wonderful at all, although it also doesn't drive me to call for the harsh responses that many conservatives are calling for, such as banning them from receiving welfare (punishing the kids for something they didn't do, subjecting them to malnourishment in their childhoods that could potentially damage their brain development permanently). But I do think it's completely in keeping with the principles that religious conservatives claim to think is wonderful. Nadya Suleman's fertility treatments created 36 embryos. Having accepted the religious conservative argument that embryos are human beings and that deliberately not giving birth to them constitutes murder, she felt obliged to have all 36 of them implanted in her, 6 at a time, over the course of 6 pregnancies.

Yes, this happened to produce 14 kids. (The first 30 embryos produced her first 5 pregnancies, including one set of twins, for a total of 6 kids. The last 6 embryos produced octuplets because 2 embryos split to create 2 sets of identical twins within the octuplets.) But what else would religious conservatives have wanted her to do, once those 36 embryos existed?

Of course religious conservatives aren't happy that the mother ~~isn't married~~ doesn't have a husband. (If she wanted a wife, the religious conservatives would do everything in their power to prevent her marriage, no matter how useful the wife might be in helping to financially support and otherwise care for the 14 kids.) But Bristol Palin wasn't married either - still isn't, and there's no wedding date set for the future, despite the talk about how they expect to get married "eventually." Yes, Nadya Suleman is unemployed, but Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are both 18 and still without a high school degree. Why did the same religious conservatives applaud Bristol Palin's decision to go through with her unwed pregnancy, while harshly attacking Nadya Suleman for going through with hers?

I see several differences that could potentially explain the different reactions:

Bristol Palin only had one baby instead of 14. However, if embryos were human beings and deliberately not giving birth to them were murder, then choosing not to murder them should remain the best decision no matter whether that choice is made once or 14 times. Putting oneself in the position of having to make such a choice 14 times might make the choice a little less praiseworthy, but it certainly shouldn't merit the kind of vicious attacks I've been seeing against Nadya Suleman.

Bristol Palin's embryo was in her actual uterus; Nadya Suleman's was frozen in a lab. However, if embryos were human beings and deliberately not giving birth to them were murder, then it shouldn't matter where the embryos were located. In both cases, the mothers made (arguably) bad decisions when creating the embryos, but in both cases they chose not to "murder" them.

Bristol Palin is the daughter of the former Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Religious conservatives might have harshly condemned her pregnancy if doing so wouldn't have increased the chance of electing Obama president.

Bristol Palin is white. Are religious conservatives only eager to fill the world with unplanned white babies?

I'm not going to speculate on which of these possibilities explains the majority of the different reactions, but I would like to see people start asking religious conservatives to explain their drastically different reactions to these two situations.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The two other differences:

1. Bristol Palin is on her first pregnancy. Suleman is on her -- sixth? Do I have that right?

2. Bristol Palin is the daughter of two wealthy parents who can easily support her. This is apparently not true of Nadya Suleman. (I say apparently because I haven't been following this case that closely and only seem to overhear the tabloidy bits.)

The financial issue seems to be a key here -- one thing I did overhear was that apparently the Duggar superfamily feels they're under less criticism because they can financially support their 17 or 18 or however many kids.

(I think the Duggars are pretty nuts as well, but that might be a separate subject.)

In any case, I don't think that the media overkill is helpful for Suleman's older kids. But few people seem to be focusing on the kids.

1. That's my #1 too. Already addressed in my entry. (Oh wait - were you referring to the different number of pregnancies rather than the different number of babies? I don't see how that makes a difference, if you accept the religious conservative reasoning about how embryos that have already been created must be birthed. All 36 of Suleman's embryos were created at once, before her first pregnancy. So from that point onward, anything other than implanting all 36 of them in her would have been equivalent to abortion.)

2. Have Sarah and Todd said whether they intend to support Bristol and Levi for the rest of their lives? I know that if I'd gotten pregnant in high school and married my high school dropout baby daddy, my parents wouldn't have volunteered to support my family of three for the rest of our lives. Assuming Bristol and Levi are going to be expected to support themselves at some point, their continued lack of high school degrees when they're both 18 doesn't bode terribly well for their future wealth.

Edited 2009-02-24 05:52 (UTC)

I find it very difficult to follow Sarah Palin, but she and her husband did state in August that they would be financially supporting Bristol, with no time line given. This was, of course, in the context of a presidential campaign, before the start of the financial support, and while the boyfriend was still planning on working to support the family. I am cynical enough to expect financial support to continue until the 2012 election.

I don't think it's merely that Suleman has 14 kids, by the way -- it's specifically the number of pregnancies. The last set of U.S. octuplets (the Texas set) didn't get this criticism, even though the parents were black and not that wealthy in part because it was their first pregnancy and they had actually only hoped for one baby. (And they tragically lost one.) The chief criticism of Suleman appears to be that she already had six kids. Of course, if most of the embryos hadn't implanted, as with her previous pregnancies, we would never have heard about any of this - and I suspect that other women out there are also getting additional IVF implants after more than one successful pregnancy.

What makes me nervous here is the call to regulate fertility treatments and so on -- I realize that regulation can benefit women's health, but in this context, it sounds less like helping women, and more like trying to control their reproductive decisions. Whatever else you can say about Suleman she did certainly make her own reproductive choices.

And maybe that's the center issue -- much of the religious conservative movement doesn't want women to be able to make those sorts of decisions.

Incidentally, while I absolutely support Suleman's right to make her own reproductive choices....

Can I just auugh about overpopulation already quietly over here?

(The inconsistency of environmentalism and reproductive freedom.)

Judging by the photos of her pregnancy, I don't think there's any need to worry about anywhere near enough other women being willing to give birth to octuplets to have a significant effect on overpopulation.

I was not aware that her reason for the successive pregnancies was a belief in the ... birthright? ... of her embryos. That really makes people's reactions all the more infuriating, for all the reasons you have stated.

I posted a while ago about the conservative doublespeak when it comes to reproductive choice -- or perhaps I should say "choice to parent." The standard line seems to be, "You are a selfish murderer if you choose to have an abortion because you cannot financially support a child/children." On the other hand, "If you have children you are unable to financially support -- regardless of how emotionally invested you are in their wellbeing, and how adept you are at parenting -- you should not expect financial assistance from the government and, instead, find your child/ren a 'good' [read: financially advantaged] home." That really makes me livid.

One standard argument seems to be the Suleman could not possibly be an adequate parent because her attention is so divided. Well, then, give her some help, folks. Like you said, Gayle: the ones being truly punished by all the cold shoulders are the kids.

Society's reaction has been vulgar. Rich women get fertility treatments with multiples quite commonly, yet nobody is complaining about that raising everyone's insurance rates. Rich women have large families, divorce and go on welfare--straight from the great martyr of "stay at home mom" to getting snappy new moniker of welfare trash. This country is obsessed to the point of it's own detriment about who might be getting over. This woman is too easily scapegoated and it is disgusting how entitled people feel to vilify her. There is probably someone in each family and neighborhood doing something much more worthy of becoming a national villain, let alone those in the public spotlight.
Even if Nadya had started out white, rich, republican, and married to a man, if she had lost one of those things we would be back to the witch hunt.

Bristol Palin made a poor choice in having a child so young but Nadya Suleman deliberately had that many embryos harvested. Most doctors would never recommend harvesting that many nor implanting that many. After she had her first five or six,if she didn't want to murder the remaining embryos she could have donated them to another woman that has fertility problems. I believe nobody should have kids if they cannot physically and financially provide for them. If you choose to have that many you should be banned from welfare. If you can't support your kids,get your tubes tied and give them to someone who can.

Banning her from welfare would punish her kids as much as her - or more so, since malnutrition in childhood can permanently stunt a child's development.

Nadya Suleman and Bristol Palin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

or

Re: or