baby hoarders

i blame angelina jolie.

this mother of a recent litter of octuplets is proving more of a freak-show each day. we now know who she is, that she and her tsunami of a womb bankrupted her parents and that her entire brood, all 14, including a set of twins, were conceived via in-vitro. she had a single donor years ago and ziplocked a bunch of frozen eggs.

no job, no husband, no baby-daddy, no visible means of support, other than her freaked-out parents, yet some doctor(s?) kept popping her up with fertilized eggs. "please, sir? may i have some more?" she always wanted "lots of kids", according to her mom, but was diagnosed infertile at a young age. stuffed up tubes or something. if there is really a hand of god at work, he was at least trying there, don't ya think?

GAAAHHH!!!!

she has hired TWO publicists and is fishing for a $2 million payday from oprah, sawyer or some such flak. "she just wants to make sure her babies have a secure future." actual quote. are you fucking kidding me? how far does $2 million go, split 17 ways, after the pampers and the enfamil stop coming for free? who will pay for the massive bill incurred by this freakish feat of science? who will pay for the special medical needs of these premature infants as they grow into delicate toddlers and teens? who will pay for the years of therapy these kids will need because their mother is a fertility froot loop?

the last mother who birthed octuplets called it a "blessing from god". if a doctor, a needle and a deep freezer are involved? uh, god is not between your legs.

with in vitro, the common practice -- and the ethical medical guideline -- is to "selectively reduce" the number of fetuses. so if more than 2 of the eggs "catch", the mother is advised to kill off the others. abort. nobody dares call it that, but the preferred euphemism really pisses me off. yeah, she could just as easily be killing off an albert einstein or a jeffrey dahmer, but who knows because the *pfft, baby, baby* is random. a doctor cannot force a patient into this option, but most women, having gotten this far and spent that much, make the mercenary decision to cull the embryonic herd. like most women, i have a conflicted view of abortion. a teen-aged girl, suffering the consequence of a broken condom must do the walk of shame into a clinic, past mary's on the half-shell and screaming haters, if she can even get to one anymore (thanks, george w.); but a well-off woman will be nestled in the quiet cocoon of a posh office having a "necessary procedure." "cup of early grey, mrs. so-and-so?"

frankly, i'm also not very sympathetic to middle-aged women who spend tens of thousands to force their wombs into submission. they either waited too long and misjudged their bodies' clocks or their husbands' swimmers are bent or laggardly, or what have you. i appreciate the egotism of wanting your own mini-me (look! i made that!), but i'm also a keen believer in the natural order of life. again, hand of god...eight is not enough, nor is apparently 17, because there is a show on cable now called "18 and counting." a website, a tv show, a blog, a book, ad nauseum, all about this conservative religious couple in arkansas that just keeps pumpin' out babies. they each were under 20 when they married. he has run for public office, apparently his only platform being that he is anti-choice. other than everybody having bad hair-dos, they seem like good parents. they are financially secure, work in their own business and none of their neighbors are talking smack about them. strange enough in this day of joe the plumber getting air-time, but everybody says the kids are nice and well-behaved.

transportation is provided by nine vehicles, including a 21-passenger bus. (which really only means they own 9 cars.) although where the hell they all go together, besides mega-church on sunday, is a complete mystery to me.

the kids are home-schooled, according to a christian program. i suppose if they were sucking up tax dollars for books and pencils and special ed classes, more folks might be squawking dirt. (am i wrong in recalling that home-schooled families get a tax rebate?) the family belongs to an evangelical christian movement called quiverful, which much like "taken in hand," teaches that the women are submissive to the men and the kids submit to both parents. like the exiled lds polygamists, the girls wear long dresses and modified mullets. quiverful holds that children are a blessing from god and that husbands and wives should gladly accept all the children they are given.

"we are just so grateful to god for another gift from him," said jim bob duggar, the dad upon birth of number 18. (couldn't he just have the one first name? jeebus, lol.)

neither the california nutcase nor this southern couple are being *given* babies. no stork is dropping them off on his busy global rounds, nobody's leaving them under cabbage leaves. i can't begin to fathom that doctors continue to enable the former (again, ego -- look what i made!!), and the duggars just won't "waste" the seed. hell, even the pope is ok with pulling out.

the duggars continue to conceive naturally, and the mother remains healthy.

ms. california is another story. is the ama on this yet?

they may seem two ends of the spectrum but both ends are whoring themselves and their KIDS out for dough. for fame. maybe to recruit more quivers.

if you can't be meryl streep or robert altman or yo-yo ma; or tom brady or giselle; or stephen hawking or stevie ray vaughan; if you aren't pete doherty, lindsey lohan, paris hilton or even amy winehouse, i guess fertility is the new option for your 15 minutes.

yuk.