Now is that the most beautiful face on earth or what? And today’s her birthday. And for dinner she’s getting organic chicken thigh…yum!

Finally, an article that appears in mainstream media that is actually intelligent. In case you haven’t kept up with the news, it seems that there were two cases of sextuplets that were born within days of eachother; the Masche group born at 30 weeks gestation in Arizona and the Morrison sextups, born at 22 weeks gestation in Minnesota. This particular article is pragmatic news coverage of the Masche case, instead of the glowing, bubbling, and ignorant type:

From the Tuscon Citizen.com:

Can I be blunt? The female human was not meant to give birth to litters.

Less than a day apart, women from Arizona and Minnesota gave birth to a total of 12 babies. That’s right, two sets of sextuplets, one born Sunday in Minnesota to Ryan and Brianna Morrison and the other Monday in Phoenix to Bryan and Jenny Masche.

With little exception, the coverage of the pregnancies was neutral or positive, with humorous asides about 50-inch bellies, late-night feedings and mountains of dirty diapers.

One article, noting that 12 American couples have given birth to sextuplets who survived infancy, called the Masches of Lake Havasu “the lucky 13th.” Couples in California and Florida also are expecting sextuplets this year.

Because I am a media veteran who wrote about health care for five years, the refusal to cover this story for what it is drives me more than a little crazy.

Birthing six babies at once is not a medical miracle. It’s a medical disaster!

One of the Morrison sextuplets died Wednesday. His siblings’ chances of survival are low. The future health of all of these babies is a big question mark.

I agree completely. We fawn over these cases as though they are oh so wonderful, but they’re not. First, as of this writing, the third Morrison sextuplet has died. I’ve never even seen a single baby born at 22 weeks survive, so I’m doubtful that any of these “miracles” will survive.

The other babies have a better chance because they are bigger, but they may still have multiple health problems down the road. Plus, Jenny Masche is currently in critical condition due to her “miracles.” She went into acute heart failure shortly after her C-section, due to all of the extra blood in her body. It’s possible she may not make it, so there will be six miracles and no mom.

Both couples seem to come from very religious families and have a strong faith in God. Nothing wrong with that, but I hate the way people selectively invoke the will of God as convenient. They claim their religious beliefs could not allow them to selectively abort some of the fetuses, in order to ensure the health and survival of at least some of them–well, that is a personal choice. But it seems that if not for fertility treatments and other manipulations of the normal process of getting pregnant, a high tech birth, and a fancy high tech nursery in which to care for the infants, those sextuplets would not be here now. If they really believed in the will of God, as do Christian Scientists, then they would have relied on God. Not science.

Ditto for those who believe that contraceptives are wrong, and that only God “opens the womb and closes the womb.” So I guess it’s okay to use science to create a baby but not to prevent conception? And isn’t it God who starts the heart and therefore stops the heart? So would a person who is opposed to contraception refuse CPR during a heart attack? Afterall, God stopped the heart so who are you, mere mortal, to try to restart it? Would the person refuse a bypass–God afterall, clogged the arteries.

It seems most of the “God’s will” type talk seems to apply to the use of contraception, and preserving a pregnancy at all costs. It’s okay to use whatever high tech procedures necessary to get pregnant, get the baby out, and keep it alive, but preventing a pregnancy or aborting it goes against God’s will. Interesting logic. At least the Catholic church is somewhat consistent in their views, in that they oppose both artificial contraception and fertility treatments.