Come in, my little ones. I’ve got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments.

Not sure if this is the greatest use of our scientific prowess at a time when hordes of neo-luddites are attacking science as though it were a hollow, not-to-be-trusted cult for atheists and communists. A couple who have already had two sets of quads and another child are pregnant yet again – all of it through IVF.

One is reminded of the words of Monty Python:

Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

…although in this case the root (ahem) cause of the problem was that the husband doesn’t actually produce live sperm, hence the use of IVF.  Presumably if he were actually fertile the couple would be running into the hundreds of offspring by now.

The happy couple could perhaps take a look at this chart and reflect that there probably isn’t a pressing need for a 600% replacement rate given that the (arguably) already-full planet is headed for the 8-10 billion range by 2050.

It is also doubtful that the income produced by selling stories to tabloid magazines actually does offset the cost of raising a dozen or so children to university age, even with the baby bonus taken into account.  With increasingly tough food safety standards thanks to mad cow disease and avian flu, they may struggle to recoup their outlay, even on a per-kilo basis…
(thanks to KO)