Posted on 08/13/2007 4:35:05 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...Few crimes generate greater public reaction than neonaticide: when a mother kills her baby, or leaves it to die, on the day she gives birth. We are repelled, yet mesmerized, as details emerge. How could a woman deny being pregnant for so many months? How could no one notice? How could a mother murder her newborn?
As a forensic psychologist, I have evaluated 32 mothers who were charged with killing one or more of their children. Fourteen-year-old "Cathy" was one. She had been repeatedly molested by her stepfather, gave birth alone in her bedroom, and then threw her newborn against the wall. "Edna," a college freshman, was so indecisive about ending her pregnancy that she suffocated her minutes-old baby in an act of delayed abortion.
Cathy and Edna denied and hid their pregnancies, common in neonaticide cases, particularly among teens pregnant for the first time. That was also true in the recent Anaheim case in which a 17-year-old visiting from Indiana allegedly gave birth in a Denny's restroom; police said that neither her parents nor her boyfriend knew she was pregnant. (That baby was found alive in a trash can and hospitalized; the mother has been charged with felony child abuse and neglect.)
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Delayed abortion” - is that a new term?
How tragic.
I would have a hard time believing that those who support abortion rights would be upset by the killing of newborns.
And there you have it folks.
There is no bright line. If it is OK to kill the baby two minutes before birth, it is OK to kill the baby two minutes after. We look upon these women as if they are deluded or misguided. Actually, they are more clear minded about this matter than any of us.
I am utterly speechless at acts such as these. This is where abortion has taken us. Devalue human life of the unborn, and we all pay the price as a society.
This gives me a notion that’s hard to express, but I’ll try.
On the one hand I just want to just echo what the others have so rightly said: that I’m speechless, I’m at a loss to understrand this, this is so unimaginably brutal, it’s the fruit of a generation of legal baby-disposal via abortion, “what’s she guilty of, except procrastination,” etc.
On the other hand, I want to say I think the normal, healthy animal instincts in the human species are surprisingly weak. Instinct seems to decree, in other species, that the healthy female mammal will keep her babies in her den or nest or hidey-hold, clean them, suckle them, and defend them from danger. But in humans, this instinct has the power of a “suggestion” rather than the power of a “command,” -— even, a disappearingly weak suggestion in some people.
And so I want to say that as a culture we have to re-commit ourselves to the strengthening of the good animal instincts.
By this I mean strengthening masculinity in boys and femininity in girls, male-female mating through (to use the feminist’s scornful term) “priviliging heteronormativity,” And then strengthen female nurturant behavior by encouraging little girls to play with dolls (not Barbies and Bratz, but real baby-dolls that look soft and huggable and kissable); even, to raise our children at home so that they SEE infant-nurturing happening on a daily basis, lots of it, rather than raising them in daycares and preschools or with the electronic nannies of plug-in entertainment.
It looks like I’m coming full-out in favor of what has been called “gender stereotyping” and against the gender-free, “Free To Be You And Me” autonomy/androgyny thing that has consumed child-culture for the past 40 years.
My argument wanders. I’m reaching, here, maybe over-stating. But still. Does this make even an iota of sense?
Carolyn
How could the mothers of minors be so oblivious as to not notice that they weren’t buying tampax for their daughters? For NINE MONTHS?
*************
Yes, it does.
You are right on the mark as far as I am concerned. But I am an old fogey.
This reminds me of the simple fact that “pro-choicers” are mostly protecting rapists from prosecution.
Why is anyone surprised hat this goes on? It’s the natural extension of “the right” of abortion.
They're not upset at all. People who support abortion loathe children, especially infants.
Well put. I am with you.
Maybe Philip Dick’s “The Pre-Persons” should be required reading in junior high schools.
When resources are scarce other mammals do kill and possibly eat their newborns. Maternal instincts in animals go both ways.
The cases in the article have something in common. An environment perceived by the mother as not conductive to having and raising a child.
I'm glad MY mom didn't know about that "delayed abortion" thing. I wouldn't have been safe even after finishing high school.
Every time I hear the term “delayed abortion” I think about the South Park episode where Cartman’s mom sleeps her way up the political food chain to protect her “abortion rights”.
She ends up sleeping with President Bill Clinton, who says she has the right to an abortion, and asks how far along she is, and she says she wants to abort Cartman.
Anyway, I almost had some sympathy for the 14-year-old. Not quite, but at least I can understand, she was being raped, she didn’t want to believe she was pregnant, she takes out her anger on the object borne of her torture.
Then they threw in the other girl, a college student, obviously bright, who simple murders her newborn. And you know, the first girl will end up in therapy, and the 2nd girl will end up running some fortune-500 company.
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