A Brief History
On January 26, 2009, a single California woman gave birth to 8 babies at one time, becoming the first mother of octuplets that survived infancy.
Digging Deeper
Nadya Suleman was born a native Californian to parents of Lithuanian and Palestinian descent, and while she was married from 1996 to 2008, she was single when she underwent fertility treatments prior to having her 8 babies. She attended Mt. San Antonio College and earned a BS and a psychiatric technician license, applying her education to a job in a mental health facility for 3 years.
Prior to the record setting births, Nadya, or Natalie as she is now known, gave birth to 6 other children. It was later revealed that a fertility doctor had transplanted 12 frozen embryos into Suleman’s womb, 8 of which were born. The unemployed Suleman was living on public welfare at the time of the implantation and births, creating a public uproar against her and the doctor that enabled her.
Despite various publicity deals, Suleman went bankrupt in 2012 and was charged with welfare fraud in 2014. She even worked as a stripper in live shows! She is currently 47 years old.
Question for students (and subscribers): Was the State of California right to revoke the license of Dr. Kamrava, the fertility doctor in this case? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Greif, Mark. Octomom and the Politics of Babies. n+1 Foundation, Inc., 2011.
Hunter, K.N. Why Octo-Mom Became the Most Hated Woman in the World. Kindle, 2016.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Terrence McNally of a kinetic sculpture race in Arcata, California, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Furthermore, the featured image for this article kind of reminds me of an unrelated sketch from The Eric Andre Show:
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
