Tuam Babies: "It would be... kinder to strangle these children at birth" said doctor

IrishCentral.com ^ | March 6, 2017 | Niall O'Dowd

[Oztrich Boy]

3) So... the nuns killed babies and stuffed them in the sewer... ?????

Nobody is saying that.

Just that when the little bastards died (death certificates on record) the nuns disposed of the bodies off-book in the unconsecrated ground used for sewage disposal.

http://www.thejournal.ie/human-remains-found-baby-home-tuam-3268465-Mar2017/

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

You sound like an admirer of Bill Donohue.

Bzzzt. Wrong guess. Don't know who he is, though the name's familiar - perhaps from FR - and seems to appear near the word "Catholic".

My turn to guess: I'm guessing you're suffering an acute case of ACDC = Anti-Catholic Derangement Condition, by dint of the fact that you're pimping these Yellow Journalism articles that are so horrendously written that they actually make - by comparison - CNN's Trump/CommieHo/GoldenShower crapola appear to be the ultimate pinnacle of journalistic integrity in the field of investigative reporting.

And I'll also bet you're the proud owner of a few dusty hardcover volumes rushed to print (or reprint) by Baptist-related publishers in the year 1960 when it looked like JFK had a shot at the WH .... books direly warning Protestants that they would soon be executed in concentration camps for their faith if JFK won and thereby turned the nuclear codes over to the International Papist conspiracy ... right?

I've actually seen a couple of these. ("Look at this SMOKING GUN! It says that in 1542, a Papal Bull was issued by Pope Umbrage XXVII calling on the faithful - that would be Catholics - to burn or put to the sword all heretics - that includes us Baptists. And it has NEVER EVER been officially rescinded!!! The implications are staggering: It's still legally binding on every Catholic in your town, and is sure to be implemented when the time comes!!")

From the very beginning this article self-ID's as a piece of trash, as seen in the quote within the title: 'It would be... kinder to strangle these children at birth" said doctor'. Yet that doctor had absolutely NOTHING to do with this or any other Catholic orphanage. The quote was from 1924, the year before the orphanage opened. So why even put the quote in if it's irrelevant? Reason: Slime, slime, Slime by innuendo & guilt by association == the doctor was Irish, so take that. (Or why not go whole hog and lead with a quote from Adolph Hitler?) Eugenics was VERY popular in the 1920s, so it's trivial for any muckraker to google up Irish members of the Margaret Sanger Fan Club.

And see the title of this other article your links end up at: "...babies found in sewage chambers..." Ironic! Because the body of the article leads with an official's statement that puts the lie to the sensational claim in the headline itself ---

"The Commission has also not yet determined if it [the 2nd structure where the bodies were; as opposed to the 1st structure which was IDed as formerly containing sewage] was ever used for this purpose [for sewage]."

And here's a separate rebuttal to the "buried in feces" blood libel: Finbar McCormick, a professor of geography at Queen’s University Belfast, sharply admonished the media for describing the children’s last resting place as a septic tank. He added: “The structure as described is much more likely to be a shaft burial vault, a common method of burial used in the recent past and still used today in many part of Europe..... Such tombs are still used ..."

So all we know for sure is the bodies were found in an underground structure of unknown origin on the same parcel of land that contained a sewage tank. But guilt by association works just fine for one suffering from ACDC, I guess?

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"...confirmed to have been starved to death while in the care of the Nuns. No proof you say?...

Yes, I do say! "Starved to Death"? Yet more Yellow Journalism. Here are the results of the death certificates for all 796 children who died there:

Notice the entry in the 2nd column for "Malnutrition". It says "10" - a whopping 10 out of 800.

And do you see the line just above it? "Congenital syphilis ... 12". Those are babies *BORN* with syphilis, inherited from the mother's blood. Before you blame "Malnutrition" deaths on "Nuns deliberately starving kids," tell me if we should also blame the syphilis deaths on the Nuns?

No? And why not? Because before they ever entered the orphanage, those dying babies were already doomed by bad choices their teen mothers made, that's why. So then, how can you any more blame malnutrition-related deaths on the nuns either? Do you personally know how far gone each of those 10 babies was before moving there?

Nobody actually "dies of malnutrition" any more than one "dies of old age". Rather, they die of specific medical conditions that are partly/mostly/wholly caused by malnutrion or old age. And it's not an instant process. If one or more vital organs had already been greatly damaged by malnutrition to the point of being unhealable BEFORE they entered the home, there's precious little the nuns could do.

By your "journalistic tastes" I'm guessing you must really be a big fan of CNN & NYT & Wapo & HuffPo & DailyKos, am I right?

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

FYI, I’m directing my comments solely to “protest1” and just CCing the rest of you.

[protest1]

The Roman Catholic Church is, quite rightly, blamed it is fully their responsibility as the death rate for the general population at the time was 7% but the figure for those dying in the “care” on the nuns was 25%.

[protest1]

You are up to you neck in pure evil. You talk a lot and say nothing much. Eighteen death certificates only 10 of which seem to be shown in the chart. You think even 10 deaths from malnutrition is trivial are you that evil? Not one child in the care of those Nuns should starve to death not one. Undernourishment is a major factor in many of the other deaths, you even admit as much in your reply. Which begs the question why are the nuns not feeding these children? Why are they so severely malnourished and "cared" for so badly that a full one quarter of them die in their care?

"The mortality rate was 25 percent on average over the years, only seven percent for the “normal” population."

"Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children. Eighteen she discovered died of starvation; yes, they were starved to death."

A 25% mortality rate and 18 confirmed to have been starved to death while in the care of the Nuns. No proof you say?

Yellow journalism you say. One in four children in their "care" die as opposed to 7% in the general population at the time and you ignore it. Shame on you.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"You are up to you neck in pure evil."

It's not a case of me being "evil".

It's a case of your *dementia*.

A case of you having "Nuns On The Brain". What is this fetish you have about nuns anyway?

What don't you understand about TEN CHILDREN OVER A PERIOD OF 37 YEARS BEING STARVED TO DEATHS BY THEIR NEGLECTFUL TEEN MOTHERS, PERHAPS EVEN BEING STARVED IN THE WOMB, ENTERING THE HOME WHEN IT'S TOO LATE TO SAVE THEM BECAUSE THEIR ORGANS ARE ALREADY FATALLY DAMAGED???

Again, I can't prove that's the scenario, but it's a far likelier scenario than yours and the Blood Libeling journalists' proposed scenario of: "Healthy happy bouncing well-fed babies enter an orphanage, only to be cruelly starved by Satanic Nuns!!" It's only sheer hatred & malice on your part that can drive you to come up with this as the likeliest scenario. You're starting to worry me.

AGAIN, LET ME REPEAT: THERE IS NOT ONE SINGLE DOCUMENTED CASE IN ALL THE HEALTH AUTHORITY'S RECORDS SHOWING THAT A MALNUTRITION-RELATED DEATH WAS CAUSED BY THE NUNS.

Blaming the 10 malnutrition deaths on the nuns is just as insane as blaming all annual Chicago gunshot deaths on the ambulances and ER's, because: Hey! They were still breathing when you got your hands on them, so it's all your fault!

As far as the stats go, yes, ALL Irish orphanages and even normal two-parent homes in Ireland over most of those decades had horrendously high death rates for children that would be unimaginable today. Antibiotics for fighting bacterial infections, and immunizations for commonly fatal childhood diseases were only starting to spread around the world towards the last decade or two of this orphanage's existence. And you better believe it was the poorest nations which got them LAST. And you better believe Ireland was the poorest of the poor in Europe.

Aren't you aware of anything about their history? The 1800's Potato Famine zeroed out their economy, and it was only starting to recover by the early 20th century when they got hit by the double whammy of warfare: First their Revolution to separate from the UK, and then their internal Irish Civil War. And if that wasn't enough societal damage, the Civil War was almost immediately followed by the worldwide Great Depression.

There are stories of starvation all over the US in the 1930s, yet we started into the Depression as a far wealthier nation than did Ireland, so the level they eventually sank down to must have been incredibly far below ours. In the blackest of economic times, how do young, unskilled, homeless teen girls kicked out of their own homes when their parents can no longer feed them, sent into a society without govt welfare, support themselves? Any guesses? Do you think they had 9 full months of cushy pre-natal care and healthy diets with loads of the proteins needed to keep the babies growing while in the womb, to generate plenty of breast milk after birth, and enough to feed both them and the babies after weaning?

I think the proportion of death certificates listing "Malnutrition" is so *LOW* (only 12 out of 796) because most of the babies were born at the orphanage or came in soon after birth, so that the good care of the nuns kept them from starving. Most likely the very few malnutrition deaths were due to a small number of babies who came in with their organs already starting to shut down due to being starved *before* they arrived.

As to the high numbers of ALL deaths, the chain of links I followed from these stories told of how most deaths came in waves, in big spikes, happening when a contagious disease started and spread rapidly to all the kids there, because they were all living in one place (instead of separately in nuclear family homes where parents could quickly quarantine them away from classmates or neighborhood playmates).

Also, the figures you quote are cherry-picked, by selecting only the worst year or range of years. Eg, 1947 was chosen by one Yellow Journalist likely due to it being a year with the highest ratio in deaths between that orphanage and the average of all other Irish orphanages that year (other than Dublin, who refused to report their figures, which makes you wonder why).

One way you can tell it was cherry-picked, is that the number of Congenital Syphilis cases for 1947 was *2*, yet there were 12 total in 37 years, averaging 1 every 3 years. 1947 was a very bad year for Tuam, and so the axes-to-grind writers have targeted it.

Another major point most of these articles ignore is that, A) Yes, this one orphanage over a certain span of years, DID have a higher death rate than the others, though not nearly as high as your cherry-picked figures, and B) The doctors / health authorities who did annual re-certification inspections were very much aware of these stats, and took pains to find out what the reason was, and C) They never did find out what the reason(s) were, but they investigated enough to figure out that the nuns were not the reason.

Here's verbatim the report of the health inspector from the infamous year of 1947: "The death rate amongst infants is high... The death rate had appeared to be on the decrease but has now begun to rise again. It is time to enquire into the possible cause before the death rate mounts higher." The report went on to say, "the care given to infants in the Home is good, the Sisters are careful and attentive; diets are excellent. It is not here that we must look for cause of the death rate"

Did you notice that? He said the nuns were NOT to blame for the higher rate of deaths. This guy was an inspector who did this for a living. This inspector was an actual contemporary. He was *THERE*. So it's his first hand account from an in-person live close-up inspection on the one hand, versus Journalists With Agendas 70 years later, well armed with biases & prejudices & hatreds. Who are we to believe? My my.

Interestingly, the 1947 inspector did go on to suggest a few possible causes for their higher rates (after clearing the nuns of responsibility). He mentioned the geriatric doctor who the local authorities assigned to this orphanage, implicitly questioning his competence, and suggested a "younger doctor" - which seems to be a euphemism for "competent doctor". He also thought perhaps diseases were being brought in from the outside at a higher than normal rate. And he noted the serious overcrowding there, which meant that any time the next disease swept through, the crowding made the fatality rate much higher. They were way over their supposed max capacity of 243, hosting 332 children & mothers.

Once again, is it the nun's fault they were overcrowded? Or that the authorities assigned them a doctor in his 80s?

Another thing I notice is that all the worst-case stats are for the under-1-year old demographic. The older kids never get mentioned ANYwhere. Why is that? Could it be because once children can talk and then become sick, they're able to tell of a new worrisome symptom to their harried, overworked protectors, each of whom is responsible for watching over DOZENS of them? So the nun can call the doctor. Whereas the non-talkers can only cry, and a non-parent who has to divide her attention dozens of ways will have no idea WHAT a crying episode is about, unlike a 24x7 attentive parent who learns to figure out what is wrong much more quickly.

This set of sensationalist stories just stinks on so many levels. And it's not from the sewage at Tuam. It's coming from the mouths of the irresponsible journalists, and being spread by such as yourself, who seem to harbor an abiding, insatiable hatred of anything Catholic.

Well, I hope all these heated exchanges don't trigger your horror-show Evil Nun Nightmares to recur.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"...death rate for the general population at the time was 7% but the figure for those dying in the “care” on the nuns was 25%."

You know how the saying goes, re "Lies, damned lies, and statistics". You are comparing apples to zebras here, by selecting the general population on the one hand, Tuam babies under 1 year old during the most precarious months of life on the other hand, picking the very worst year for the Tuam babies, and the very best year for the general population. So yeah, I grok your frustration in trying to figure out why the apples over here aren't running anywhere near as fast as the zebras over there.

A lot more on the numbers, in the next posting I'm about to make....

BTW, the author of the Forbes article makes a compelling, well-researched case demonstrating the journalistic malfeasance of Ireland's MSM w/ regards to this story, concluding with: "The image of nuns consciously dumping babies in a septic tank is one of the most irresponsible press hoaxes of modern times."

[huldah1776]

Gotta love stats. BAH! When you read that the life expectancy was very low, it is because they did not EXclude those who died before the age of five. In stats class we had to do a report after visiting cemetaries. I was fortunate enough to live in the NE and went to Bristol, PA. Many children died so young.