If the mother had octuplets naturally, I'd give her a partial pass -- she just got extremely unlucky with another pregnancy (although after six kids she should have used some reliable method of birth control). And as long as those fourteen kids did not become a burden on taxpayers, I'd say that it was her problem and nobody else's business.
But the reality is likely to be far different. The odds of having octuplets without fertility drugs are virtually zero. No reputable doctor or clinic would administer fertility drugs to a woman who already had six kids, so she probably stole the drugs and self-medicated.
Indeed, every possible scenario involving fertility drugs points to this woman as being monstously irresponsible. And if she's that irresponsible about something as important as conceiving children, then it's not surprising if she has also been irresponsible about other life decisions and financial matters.
"Reports Cast Octuplets' Mother in Less-Flattering Light" is probably the understatement of 2009.
Most reputable clinics would probably agree to provide fertility drugs to a woman who already had six children, but they would not participate in an insemination (and would strongly counsel against doing it the natural way) when ultrasounds and blood tests showed a large number of eggs maturing, nor would they transfer more than a couple of embryos in an IVF procedure.
It’s really not a doctor’s or clinic’s business to decide a woman shouldn’t have more children, unless they have knowledge that the children she already has are not being properly cared for. But it IS their business not to aid and abet procedures that pose a huge medical risk to both the mother and babies. However, there’s not a whole lot they can do about it if a client is counseled in advance that a stimulated IUI cycle must be cancelled if too many eggs mature, and the idiot woman still goes home and does the deed with her husband/boyfriend or inseminates herself with some random donor’s sperm. They can’t hold women prisoner to prevent them from doing something stupid and dangerous.
Someone posited the theory that she was loading up on fertility drugs so she could sell her eggs for money, but she happened to go bang somebody and got pregnant before the eggs could be harvested.