'Don't Throw Your Baby Away' Stickers Upset Trash Company

CNSNews.com ^ | 8.20.02 | Daniel Guido

[victim soul]

A Santa Cruz, Calif., woman who killed her newborn baby and dumped the body in the trash has received her punishment - and part of her punishment has upset the local trash-collection company.

In addition to imposing a jail sentence, the judge ordered Joanne De La Cruz to do 500 hours of community service, which requires her to put "Don't Throw Your Baby Away" stickers on trash dumpsters in her community.

The stickers are intended to promote a new California "safe abandonment" law that lets mothers surrender their newborns at hospital emergency rooms within 72 hours of giving birth - no questions asked.

Waste Management dislikes the idea of its trash bins being covered with the stickers. Wire reports quote Waste Management spokeswoman Sarah Voss as saying, "We're not really sure that putting stickers on containers is the most effective way to get the message out."

Mark Arsenault, who runs Waste Management's operation in Santa Cruz, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, "If we get to the point where we have to advertise to our public telling them not to throw babies in Dumpsters, then I think we've reached the lowest point we can get to as a society."

[Wurlitzer]

"So the judge ordered the woman to put stickers on someone else's private property? If I owned that trash company, I sure as hell wouldn't allow it. The judge should be brought up on charges of encouraging defacement of private property. "

BINGO!

[victim soul]

Ditto. Who would ever believe that we would ever reach the point in this great nation founded on The Bill of Rights and The Declaration of Independence that we would treat our posterity -- our weakest and most defenseless -- as a throw-away commodity?

[sparkydragon]

This woman killed her child, yes. In my post I was refering to the law allowing a child to be dropped off at a hospital with no questions asked.

sparky

[sparkydragon]

She certainly should. In my earlier post I was refering to those who dump their children off to the government. I think that dropping your child off at a hospital and expecting someone else to take care of it is just as bad as dropping a child of on someone's doorstep and expecting someone else to take care of it.

sparky

[sparkydragon]

In California if they really want to spread the word the stickers would be in English, Spanish, and at least one Oriental language.

sparky

[gd124]