Re: [Marxism] In defense of Nadya Suleman

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From the social and political point of view, and apart from whether this
individual is "crazy," what is to be noted about HER is that she felt the
only/main validity to her existence was to become a mother, and her
subsequent decision (which was *her* decision, as she made clear in a TV
interview) to have what current medical practice considers an unnecessary
and risky implantation of six embryos (so much so that it is banned in some
countries). And all the more so when she already had six children two to
seven years of age, including three with special needs.

I was a little amused by David Thorstad's characterization of this as
"hetero breeding" run amok because in some ways this was the opposite of
"hetero breeding" as that might be normally understood: they are all "test
tube babies," with her eggs fertilized in a petri dish with sperm from a man
that, as far as we know, she was not intimate with and had and has no
commitment to her or her children. But I think in another way David is quite
right: this is the socially-imposed ideology that women's main or only role
is as mothers that, for whatever reasons, found an extreme, even absurd
manifestation in this individual. But the very excess highlights the
underlying social pathology.

One part of David's comments I take very strong objection to is his
comparison of this woman's dependence on what really should be called
social, human  solidarity with the rape of the taxpayers by the bankers and
Wall Street. As the fairly responsible (I hope) father of two children, I
think society does not devote nearly enough resources to the raising of
children (and long time subscribers may remember my orthodox Marxist
opposition to state-controlled education [socalled "public" --capitalist
government monopoly-- schools] and my position instead of the state bearing
the FULL cost of the education of ALL children and young people, with ALL
parents having the right to decide which school was right for their
children, and not just relatively privileged parents. Something which right
off the bat would increase state expenditures by many billions of dollars).

In addition, I'm not exactly sure of the FORMS --dreaming up ideal socialist
societies is hardly productive-- but now that I've got two "freshman"
children, one high school, one college, I'm pretty sure that society as a
whole needs to provide very substantial resources and create robust
structures for young people as they reach adolescence growing AWAY from
their parents. I know in Cuba for a while they had ESBECS (initials of
"basic secondary schools in the countryside," boarding schools for 12-14
year olds. I'm not sure they still exist, they were established in the
1970's to handle the baby boom of the first few years of the revolution, but
there is a lot to be said, I believe, for qualitatively expanding the
autonomy of young people as they reach adolescence that it is very difficult
for the traditional household (or "family") to accommodate, contributing at
least in part to the stereotypical "teenage rebelliousness" that one finds
in West European (and West European-derived) societies like the United
States. 

Nothing in these comments should be taken to imply that I am for this or
future societies trying to impose controls or limits on the reproductive
choices of women. And this includes society refusing to provide the
necessary resources so that children can grow up in decorous circumstances
(by the standards of the given society), which I view as mainly a right of
the children, rather than of their mother or parents.

Joaquín



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