There was a brief period of time when the world looked in awe upon Nadya Suleman, the California mother who successfully gave birth to healthy octuplets. But the awe quickly turned to dismay when it became known that Suleman already has six other children and was setting up a personal website asking the public for donations to keep her family fed and clothed.

The issue here is less that Nadya Suleman is blatantly exploiting her children for money, but more so that a doctor agreed to help her become pregnant and keep eight more children when she clearly would not have the means to support them.

This doctor violated his Hippocratic Oath when he was personally responsible for the birth of eight children whose future could have more traumatizing implications than that of the Dionne quintuplets.

Doctors have a duty. They swear to protect their patients, but allowing a woman with six children to birth eight more is irresponsible and frankly disturbing. The blatant lack of judgment in this situation is appalling and results in a frightening precedent that endangers the rest of us.

Childbearing may be a woman’s right, but she also has a duty to society. It is greedy and selfish of Nadya Suleman to assume that she can simply continue to bear children and then beg society to help her with them without any repercussions.

“ This doctor violated his Hippocratic Oath when he was personally responsible for the birth of eight children whose future could have more traumatizing implications than that of the Dionne quintuplets.

Though some have argued that Suleman is contributing to the demise of the nuclear family as she produced these children without a father figure in their life, or that she is trying to adopt an Angelina Jolie-like persona, the practicalities of her situation have still to be addressed. The woman has 14 kids under the age of 15 and she knew – as did her doctor – that she does not have the means to support all of them. The tragedy of their future is now a burden upon the society that will be called upon to raise them and care for them for the entirety of their lives.

Though there are millions of other large families existing in the world, it is rarely due to such a choice.

I am not suggesting that we make a law defining the parameters of child production, but there seems to be a fair amount of common sense involved in family rearing. Why would Suleman choose to bring eight children into the world when she already knows that she does not have the means to provide for them? And why would a doctor possibly want to be involved in the situation at all?

The story of Nadya Suleman is one that seems to epitomize everything that is wrong with our Western culture of over-consumption and lack of empathy towards our fellow citizens. I do not wish to presume to know what motivated the doctor into helping Suleman, but what it comes down to is that his responsibility to his profession was profoundly damaged by being implicated in Suleman’s mess.

We must seriously consider the road we are headed down when reflecting on Nadya Suleman’s story. It is time to take responsibility for our actions, and the ability of doctors to do the job they have sworn to do is the first step.

Published in Volume 63, Number 21 of The Uniter (February 26, 2009)