When Bobbi McCaughey became the world's most famous mother in November 1997, she was in no doubt as to who deserved most of the credit.
After giving birth to the first known surviving sets of septuplets, the Iowa housewife's praise was lavished not on the doctors, hospital, or even her husband, but on God.
When Nkem Chukwu made her own Guinness Book of Records bid by producing eight babies just before Christmas, she was equally secure in giving the Almighty pride of place in her acceptance speech.
'I was so thankful to God because that was what I wished for,' she said at a press conference.
One does not have to be an agnostic or sceptic to ask oneself - assuming, for the sake of argument, that a supreme being exists and was paying attention to the action down on Earth - quite how God would take to having his name cited in connection with the wonders of modern fertility medicine.
Perhaps it is asking too much to expect to encounter logic in the area of spiritual faith, but one has to query whether Mrs McCaughey or Ms Chukwu ever pondered this question: if God was so intent on seeing them reproduce, as they suggest, then why did He see fit to render two young, otherwise healthy women infertile in the first place? Taking this theme further: if it was indeed God's will that the two women be naturally incapable of giving birth, would it not be risking a torrent of wrath from on high to allow mere mortals to disrupt His great plan by inventing and administering fertility drugs? Thankfully, neither mother needs to rely on God's goodwill for now, since they have been overwhelmed with charitable offerings - from nappies to bank cheques - from thousands of human beings in America and across the world. But whatever may be their fate in the afterlife, their decision to advance the multiple-birth horse race has moral and societal implications for all of us.
'Playing God' is not in itself a negative thing; it can be argued for example that man has played God in inventing the drugs and other medical advances which have eradicated formerly killer diseases such as small-pox and now are beginning to get to work on fighting cancer. Scientific progress has taken on the momentum of a steamroller, which most governments are powerless to stop, should they even choose to. But with medicine now the playground of new advances such as fertility treatments, genetic research and cloning, playing God no longer takes place in a scientific vacuum free of ethical considerations.
