 January 6, 1999
Houston octuplets raise new questions
about medical ethics and reproduction
___HOUSTON (RNS)--With medical advances stretching the limits of medical ethics almost daily, the connection between faith and health has taken on an unprecedented dimension.
___That was  evidenced again last month in Houston, with the birth of octupletsat Texas Children's Hospital prompting new ethical questions about the use of fertility drugs.
___As the hospital staff cared for the eight tiny babies, most of whom were born Dec. 20, experts wondered aloud about the medical risks and costs resulting from the drugs that made the births possible.
___"This should not be a cause for celebration," Mark Perloe, director of reproductive endocrinology at the Atlanta Reproductive Health Center, told the New York Times. "The cost of caring for these babies and the pregnancy will run into the millions of dollars. The risk of death still exists. And there is a significant risk that they will have lifelong health problems.
___"I think this is a wake-up call for the medical profession."
___As in the case of the McCaughey septuplets, born in Iowa last year, the parents of the Houston eight cited religious reasons for declining the option of "selective reduction," where doctors abort some fetuses so others have an improved chance of survival, the Associated Press reported.
___"It was totally out of the question," said Brian Kirshon, who delivered the octuplets for the deeply religious Nigeria-born couple.
___Nkem Chukwu (pronounced nih-KEHM chuhk-WOO), 27, gave birth to her first daughter Dec. 8, but doctors were able to put off the other births until 12 days later.
___Multiple births have increased with the use of the kind of fertility drugs taken by the new mother. But with those births comes the potential for disastrous consequences for mother and children, said Alan Copperman, director of reproductive endocrinology at Mt. Sinai-N.Y.U. Medical Center in New York. "I wish this couple well and I hope the babies do well, but this scares me,"
___Martha Holstein, senior research associate at Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics in Chicago, questioned the drive behind the use of unpredictable fertility drugs.
___"What is it that creates this seemingly unlimited desire to have one's own children?" she said. "How is it getting stimulated? Why is it getting stimulated? I think among certain people there is a sense of wanting to preserve their own gene line."
___Holstein also wondered about the equity of spending money to sustain eight children when others get no good health care. "If we spend the millions that this takes, I think of all the children who get no basic primary care at all."
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