Women should conceive and give birth to children in a responsible way to the children and society but not be limited to the number of children they have. Giving birth to 8 children when having 6 is an act that most women would not even think of doing in any society in this world today. Women have come a long way to think of their body as just a means to create children but this act of creation of eight children has sparked many questions never asked before in our society or any society in today’s world.

Octuplets was unbelievable but it was true. Most of us thought this was a miracle and such an advancement of science. The medical team we saw in the hospital was amazing and miraculous. The team was schocked and not ready for the eighth baby as everyone was viewing it on TV. How can this be? But it was.

Humanity watched with wonder and awe all over the world. What an advancement of science! The babies just kept on coming. We were curious about first the mother but then who was the couple who could care for eight babies all at once? The mother and father were anonymous and we accepted it.

When we learned that she was a single mother with six more children it started to be bizarre. l6 children to care for in today’s economy for most was impossible. It would have to be one heck of a rich single mom! While most single moms would never put themselves in such a situation, still they too were perplexed.

All women could not help admiring how it was possible for a woman’s body to withstand 8 births all at the same time. Women who had conceived one at a time knew it is more than enough to endure and survive through it. Those women who naturally have had twins and triplets also were amazed. Those who have taken fertility drugs and have given birth to one, two, three, and so on most understood the impossibility of eight. All women began to ask many questions.

Men also asked questions. How could any man donate his sperm to any woman who would conceive eight children who would be fatherless in their upbringing, not to mention a woman who already had six with no father to rear the childen. We heard that it was the same man.

We could not get enough of seeing these little children but most women and men while infactuated also thought about how impossible the task would be to provide good care for these little babies going home to six more. It became a sight of joy and pain. All wanted to see just what this woman was like and why she did it.

As this mystery unfolded more and more questions were asked. She is young and certainly healthy. As a matter of fact physically healthier than most women. On the other hand many questioned her emotional and psychological health.

She said that she suffered much in her childhood in a disfuntional family. She was not loved and was lonely. As she spoke she pointed out that in having children she was able to love and be loved. Children made her happy and that’s all she wanted to do was to care for them and love them. They need her and she needs them.

The more we find out about her and the more most people question her psychological health and wonder how this whole thing happened. As we viewed the babies we felt sorry for those babies going home and the environment they would grow up in. The question being, “Just how can this situation work out?”

The mother spoke with conviction and uxuberance that it would all work out and all of us wished her luck even if it was hard to believe. She mentioned that her church will help her and it will be all right. What church would not do all they can to help out one of their parishoners but in this situation just how much could the rest of the parishoners do? Faith is one thing but living it out is another and this was not only a test of faith but a miracle would have to be performed for her and all the other parishoners.

We’re learning more and more facts but many pieces are missing from the puzzle even on the economic pieces. She insists that she will provide for them and that she will go back to school to do that. How the children will be cared for while she studies and works is not clear or feasible. Many have predicted the money it will take to do it and the total keeps going up.

We’ll learn more but it is a wake up call to all of us and society as a whole. There are many moral questions around the issue of using fertility drugs and in conceiving in an unatural way in the test tube. Science has made this possible but the ethics are still there. Many loving parents have no other way to conceive. They have been and still are wonderful parents to their children.

Woman has the power to conceive with man but this power is to be used with discipline, love, and responsibility to the children she creates. Man cannot just provide the sperm in a natural way or unatural way as in a test tube. He is to be responsible to the child he creates and to the society. Parenthood is not a game for irresponsible men and women. Children are not to be created just as an experiment nor to fulfill our emotional needs.

Having 16 children today is an irrational act but the most compelling argument is not economics but a moral one. Every child has the right to be born in a loving family and to the best of care from the family and society. Many children in the past, today, and sadly to say are and will not be born into the best conditions. These sixteen children certainly were not but here they are and they have a right to live and be cared for by her mother, those who will help, and to by our society.

Society needs to be responisble to each of these sixteen children and to all others. We all need to do all we can for all children who are not in the best of circumstances. All children are our children and all deserve our love and caring. Some find the sight of those little babies grotesque but which one of us could hold one of those babies, look at them in the eye, and not be moved by their innocence and need of loving care? Both the mother and the sixteen children need us.