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Interesting question

Science can do it, but is it right for a 65-year-old mum of 13 to have quads?
Anne Karpf

So, Ms. Karpf, are those quads gestating in you?

Are you thinking perhaps of doing this yourself?

No to both? Then it’s bugger all to do with you, is it?

For a society which insists that any woman may, whenever she wishes, flush any foetus out of herself for any reason whatever, is a society which has no right to comment upon a woman putting one or more in.

14 thoughts on “Interesting question”

  1. Science can do it, but is it right for a 65-year-old mum of 13 to have quads?

    No, frankly. Although marginally safer than a trike and more stable than a motorbike, quads are not suitable for 65 year old women.

  2. It is none of our business– true. And talk of what is “right” from some femcreep spewing in the Guardian is a joke. Nor should we or “society” in general have any right to interfere in this matter.

    Still it does seem extremely silly for a woman to arrange that by the time she is 80–if she lives that long-she will have 4 teenagers under her roof .

  3. Of course it’s not ‘right’. The woman’s mad, narcissistic, thoughtless and mean. Any scientists who help her are verging on evil.

    But if she’s funding it herself, none of my business other than to think the above.

    German taxpayers who may be expected to pick up the tab for mums and kids at the same time in similar cases may have a firmer view.

  4. So Much for Subtlety

    Interested – “But if she’s funding it herself, none of my business other than to think the above.”

    Thinking? Isn’t that all the article is doing?

    It is odd to say it is none of your business when it involves life long complications to four innocent lives. The end point, the intention, here is that four people will be stuck with the consequences of this evil woman’s decision. As they cannot speak in their own interests, I think it is fairly reasonable that society does for them.

  5. Tim Newman has already won the thread.

    But to address SMFS’s point; the right to breed is not (yet) in the gift of the State, and many people who others think will not provide an ideal child rearing environment are free to do so. I see no reason to interfere with this woman’s choices.

  6. It’s also worth noting that in the good old days, many children were raised by grandparents due to parental mortality. It’s not an automatic recipe for bad parenting by any stretch. According to my research of folk tales, the big risk was wicked stepmothers.

  7. It’s also worth noting that in the good old days, many children were raised by grandparents due to parental mortality.

    It’s exceedingly common in much of the world, because the parents normally have to work to support the grandparents and children. So the grandparents raise the kids. My wife – Russian, as I’m sure everyone knows – was raised largely by her grandmother.

  8. Bloke in North Dorset

    These quads will have 13 siblings to look after them and presumable any number of nephews and nieces.

    Having decided to have a welfare state we are starting to tie ourselves in knots over how we apply our own moral values to recipients of that welfare. For me it’s all or nothing, otherwise we are in danger of some nasty people getting to impose their morals.

  9. So Much for Subtlety

    Ian B – “the right to breed is not (yet) in the gift of the State”

    The right to IVF most certainly is. What she did was illegal in her native Germany.

    “I see no reason to interfere with this woman’s choices.”

    What if she wanted quads who glowed in the dark? Would you object to giving them cloven hooves for feet?

    Ian B – “According to my research of folk tales, the big risk was wicked stepmothers.”

    Indeed. We ought to be discouraging step-mothers. Or the odd passing boyfriend.

  10. “It is odd to say it is none of your business when it involves life long complications to four innocent lives. The end point, the intention, here is that four people will be stuck with the consequences of this evil woman’s decision. As they cannot speak in their own interests, I think it is fairly reasonable that society does for them.”

    That’s the advantage of abortion: the children don’t have to live with the consequences of their mother’s decision…

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