The "Crazy Kid Lady" of California

We have all heard of “crazy cat ladies,” who collect unmanageable numbers of cats in one house only to have the cats themselves suffer. We now have the “Crazy Kid Lady” of California. There are parallels between the two, with the main and obvious difference being that there are children involved rather than animals. As is usually the case, these questions are much more complex than most people appreciate.

I used to think that parental rights were absolute, with the exceptions being sexual abuse, physical abuse, and refusal to allow low-risk yet life-saving medical treatment. I still largely believe that. The question of who is to determine the best way to raise a child is central to my reluctance to have the state have too much power in this regard. However, recent events in California and the movie “Gone Baby Gone” have made me moderate my tone somewhat. (While I do not base my beliefs on the plots of fictional movies, a good movie can show a different perspective on an issue. Anyway, it is a worthwhile movie, but it is not for the easily offended.)

It is safe to say that this woman has issues. She went out of her way to have these babies (due to her health she could not have conceived without in-vitro fertilization) despite her financial and familial situation. She already has six children under 8 years old. She is a single mother (Do not try to tell me that is not a factor. It is.) She is unemployed. It is valid to criticize her.

People are also criticizing the doctor for going forward with this procedure. Much of this criticism is valid, including criticism of the number of embryos implanted. This doctor ignored well-established guidelines. Standard procedure for a woman her age is implanting two embryos. Multiple births carry increased risks for the children and parent involved. Another valid criticism is that the doctor should not have performed the fertilization at all given the woman’s situation. While doctors are only expected to know what the patient tells them (outside of medical records), this is the same doctor who preformed the fertilizations for all six of her previous children.

Most people agree that both the woman and doctor are wrong. Even then, there are many angles and questions related to this story that are not easy to pin down. For instance, in our rush to criticize the woman and the doctor, let us remember that we are not talking about a litter of puppies here. These eight children (and the preceding six) are human beings who are entitled to the same dignity and individuality that we afford anyone else. No one wants to grow up hearing that the only reason they exist was that their mom was nuts and her doctor was a bad man. While these circumstances are not optimum for these children, given the choice between being here and not being here, they would take the former. Also, let us not become too self-righteous over this woman giving life to 14 children for whom she can not properly care, as we often do not do what is right for the small children in our own lives. Further, roughly 1 million “fertilized eggs” yearly never even have the chance to become one of 14 children in a squalid house, which they undoubtedly would have preferred to their own fate. There is something upside-down about Americans' uproar over this creation of 14 lives, while there is relative ambivalence about the destruction of millions of lives. (Regardless of whether you think abortion regulations should be tightened or loosened, abortion is still a sad, unfortunate thing that ends a developing life. My views fall somewhere between the nuts on one side who think it is justifiable to shoot abortion doctors and the nuts on the other side who think that abortion is a right of passage along a woman's path toward self-actualization. However, this is another conversation entirely.)

Thus, while keeping an eye on the “crazy kid lady” and everyone else culpable in this debacle, let us also take more than the occasional glance in the mirror.