14 Kids and Counting

By now, I'm sure there are very few Americans who have not heard of Nadya Suleman. You may not know her name, but you may know her story. She is a 33 year old, divorced mom who just gave birth to octuplets in California. The kicker is that she has six other children and they were all conceived by invitro-fertilization. I'm sure that this story has left a lot of people scratching their heads for many reasons. The questions have abounded, how she is going to be able to afford and take care of her children. There are other questions that are being raised concerning whether there should be restrictions and regulations put in place for IVF. Should you have to show a W-2 that shows you can support your children before you are allowed to go through IVF? Should there be a restriction on how many children you are allowed to have when you use IVF? While I strongly believe that having 14 children, whether that is through natural or artificial means, is socially irresponsible, I wonder whether we need to be careful with the types of restrictions we put on IVF. We tell someone you can't use IVF because they have too many children or not enough income, do we have the same right to tell someone that they can't have children the old fashion way because they don't have enough money or already have too many children? My question is where do we draw the line, and have our legislatures thought about the constitutional implications on putting restrictions on IVF? With new technology comes new social and legislative challenges. Hopefully we are able to look at the big picture to insure that whatever restrictions are put in place are not over-turned for Constitutional reasons.