It's about the deliberate killing of the more vulnerable in our society.
by: Dick Sobsey, Director, University of Alberta
Developmental Disabilities Centre
According to the Associated Press, Susan Smith who killed her two sons in South Carolina says that she did it out of love. She wanted to spare them the pain of a broken family and being separated from their dear mother.
Canadian newspapers have been ablaze with stories of child murder in the last week. The community was shaken with outrage as Susan Smith, a South Carolina mother confessed to killing her two young sons. At first she had tried to cover up the killing with a false story, but in the end she admitted it. According to media reports, people in the small South Carolina town were traumatized and were having problems sleeping and eating. A dozen crisis counsellors had to be called into action to manage the situation. Flowers and sympathy cards poured in from across the 50 states and Canada. President Clinton called to express his personal condolences to the community. Teddy bears and crosses began to appear at the site of the drowning as throngs of grief stricken visitors tears mingled with with the murky waters of the lake. Susan Smith was thoroughly ostracised by the community.
The shock waves reached thousands of kilometres across Canada; Here in Edmonton, a three-meter-long sympathy banner proclaiming "Canada Cares" and filled with the signatures of well wishers is being sent to South Carolina to mourn the murdered brothers. Television and newspaper pictures showed a woman who covered her face with shame. She had to be held in custody at an undisclosed location and guarded from the outraged community as screams of epithets like "baby murderer" assaulted her at every confrontation with angry citizens. Our shock, dismay, and outrage that a parent could commit such an act (Two thirds of murdered children are killed by their own parents) are healthy reactions to a horrible crime.
In another story, a little closer to home, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, another parent is on trial for murdering his child. Like Susan Smith, Robert Latimer tried to cover the killing of his daughter with a lie, but confessed when the evidence became too strong. Like Smith, Latimer may have been under great stress. Like the community of Union, South Carolina, the community of Wilkie, Saskatchewan also reacted with sympathy and outrage, but their sympathy was for a father who confessed to killing his daughter and their outrage was directed toward the police and prosecutors who charged him with murder.
Unlike the two South Carolina brothers who were murdered, Tracy Lynn Latimer who was killed by her father was severely handicapped with cerebral palsy. Robert Latimer, her father is not ashamed and the rather than being ostracised, his friends and neighbors have taken up a collection to defend him for a "mercy-killing." Outside the courthouse where his trial began on Monday, he told reporters, "I think anyone who believes in this charge is a torture monger."
Some people may object to tying the Tracy Latimer's murder to that of Susan Smith, but the media has consistently tied it to Sue Rodriguez case which has less in common with it. It is true that unlike Michael and Alexander Smith, Tracy Latimer and Sue Rodriguez were disabled. However, unlike Sue Rodriguez, the South Carolina brothers and Tracy Latimer were all killed by their parents, and, more importantly, they never asked to be killed. Like Robert Latimer, Susan Smith says that she killed her children out of love. Which differences and which simialarities more important?
What makes the Saskatchewan case so different from the one in South Carolina? Where are the "Canada Cares" banners for children with disabilities?" Where are the flowers, cards, and teddy bears? Crimes against people with disabilities are chronically trivialized. This month, an Alberta Court of Appeals Court had to overrule the sentence of a male nurse who was given an 18 month sentence for sexually assaulting a woman who was strapped to a bed in the intensive care unit of local hospital because the original judge had given a lighter sentence because the woman's condition was considered "favorable" to the perpetrator.
We are worried about whether the violence of Power Rangers is a bad model for Canadian children, while we present a model that says its wrong for parents to kill their children unless they are disabled. Where are our tears for Tracy Latimer? Perhaps when we ask "for whom the bell tolls?" we should begin to realize that it tolls a lot louder for some children than others.