Taxpayers against paying child support for 14 Suleman babies · 2009-02-12 13:26
A big share of the financial burden of raising Nadya Suleman's 14 children could fall on the shoulders of California's taxpayers.
Even before the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother gave birth to octuplets last month, she had been caring for her six other children with the help of $490 a month in food stamps, plus Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters. The public aid will almost certainly be increased with the new additions to her family.
Also, the hospital where the octuplets are expected to spend seven to 12 weeks has requested reimbursement from Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, for care of the premature babies.
Word of the public assistance has stoked the furor over Suleman's decision to have so many children by having embryos implanted in her womb.
And even as the first pictures of the eight children were released by NBC, a spokesman for the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother said he, the mother and her family have been receiving death threats.
Spokesman, Mike Furtney, urged understanding, Sun Jose Mercury News reports.
Furtney said along with the death threats, he, Suleman and her family had been getting messages that were "disgusting things that would never be proper to put in any story."
On the Internet, bloggers rained insults on Suleman, calling her an "idiot," criticizing her decision to have more children when she couldn't afford the ones she had, and suggesting she be sterilized.
"It's my opinion that a woman's right to reproduce should be limited to a number which the parents can pay for," Charles Murray wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Daily News. "Why should my wife and I, as taxpayers, pay child support for 14 Suleman kids"?
She was also berated on talk radio, where listeners accused her of manipulating the system and being an irresponsible mother.
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