Who could help being awed by the sight of twins, by triplets, as an awesome mainfestation of the miraculous power of nature? Evidently, the Everson family of Maryland made that decision when they decided to turn to the public for help with a web-site that pleaded to it’s readers to “Help the Emerson Six”-Sextuplets, four girls and two boys, new born children of a family that were in dire need of help to pay medical bills. Some of the children were in poor physical health due to being born some three months premature. They were doubtless hoping to be the benieficiaries of the publics sympathetic largesse, as many parents of multiple birth children are often presented with gifts, certificates, money, food, toys, etc. In due course of time a local
Only thing was, it turned out to be a hoax, a sham perpetrated by the “parents” on what they hoped would be a gullible, non skepticle public. It may have worked, had the tv station not picked up the story, which brought the couple more attention, and notorieity, than they had counted on.
So much for them. They are not the point anyway, other than to ilustrate the fallacy in peoples thinking. I have always wondered at how people could so foolishly donate so much money to so many people who are so undeserving. Yes, I am talking about those parents who are legitimate parents of multile birth babies.
After all, these parents know the risks when the vast majority of them engage in fertility treatments in order to conceive children. The risk is very great that these multiple births will occur under these feritlization treaments, and more to the point,there is also a very good risk the children will have various degrees of medical problems, some of them serious. Yet, people throw money their way. Why?
Maybe I’m cold hearted, but it seems to me that, if you want to reward bad behavior, you will never have any shortage of it. Instead, why not set up a special fund to reward those parents who limit their childbirths to two or one, if you have to reward anyone at all. Make it a ten year contest, any couple who have no more than two children over a ten year period will automaticaly qualify for a 100 million dollar prize, add in a second, third and fourth prize, on down to a tenth prize of 1 million dollars, then have like a thousand lesser prizes of ten thousand dollars each. Anybody that qualifies at the end of the ten year period can submit their names in the drawing, with references to the proper documentation. The drawing will be completey random and have nothing to do with race, religion, or economic status.
But at the end of the ten year period there will be a handful more wealthy individuals who will make up, I suspect, a larger percenage of the population.
