The Answer to All Your Financial (and other) Problems!

Some of us are really suffering financially right now. The car industry is crashing in the United States, people are losing their jobs and houses, and many of us just don't have the extra walking-around-money that we used to.

I found inspiration when I heard about an upcoming fundraiser to take place in Ruidoso next week. A couple who has been trying, unsuccessfully, to reproduce is having a private party that you can go to (yes, you) for just $30 to help them raise money for whatever treatments are necessary for them to win at the game of making a mini-me. Chefs from around town are volunteering to prepare the donated food, and drinks will be served as well. I'm not certain if the booze is included, but it doesn't matter because I won't be attending.

Personally, I find this event wrong on so many levels. Whether or not these folks are feeling the pinch from the economy is really besides the point. If they don't have enough money to have fertility treatments, they probably don't have enough money to properly rear a child, clothe it, send it off to school, help it survive on the $20K he or she will make post-college, etc. It seems that many of these "deals" also result in multiples that the parents can't afford, in which case they sell their souls to TLC for diapers, Juicy Juice, and Johnson & Johnson baby hygiene products.

I may sound incredibly harsh to an innumerable amount of people, but I more or less subscribe to natural selection, and if you can't do it on your own, you probably weren't meant to spawn. But as humans, we have options. There are the fertility treatments/procedures that can have great results for responsible parents, or they can result in multiples that have to be terminated, or the ol' trial and error miscarriage. Why can people who want children initiate a risky pregnancy that will likely result in miscarriage, or initiate a pregnancy that will likely result in multiple embryos that must be removed, but the women who seek, and the doctors who perform, abortions are persecuted and killed for their choice? This seriously has ethical debacle written all over it, but I doubt many people here (including myself) would be brave enough to say something publicly.

Another option is adoption. I don't know how much it costs in comparison to fertility treatments, but why doesn't the couple in question consider taking on a child who was abandoned or whose parents could not care for him or her? Why bring another child onto this already crowded planet when there are plenty here already who need homes?

You know, have kids if you are so inclined, but please be responsible adults in stable relationships and in stable financial situations. I encourage you to give the world intelligent, well-mannered individuals that you can care for until they are well and able to care for themselves.

And in the meantime, I'll be planning my superficial fundraiser so I can get Botox and liposuction. If you need financial help, you should plan one too...