Posted on 05/27/2002 11:50:41 AM PDT by madprof98
A 16-year-old boy who is believed to have impregnated his 10-year-old onetime "girlfriend" was spared prison Thursday and placed on probation for one year.
Milwaukee County Children's Court Judge Kevin Martens also ordered the teenager to perform 50 hours of community service and to undergo treatment as a sex offender. The boy pleaded guilty this month to second-degree sexual assault of a child.
Had the boy misbehaved at the shelter where he was ordered to live during the past few months while the case was pending, Martens said, he probably would have been incarcerated.
The judge also expressed concern about a psychological report that indicated the boy had a cavalier attitude toward the wrongfulness of his deed, which Martens described as "reckless and irresponsible."
Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Brown had urged Martens to lock up the boy because the boy did not seem to appreciate the seriousness of his crime.
The psychological report said the boy felt "privileged to have sex with lots of people if he wants to," Brown said.
Brown said the boy also told the girl, whom Brown described as "inexperienced," that "if you like someone and you feel good around them, then you have sex because that's what people do."
The prosecutor also noted that the boy had been found delinquent for underage possession of a dangerous weapon after he accidentally fired a bullet into a neighbor's house around the same time he was involved with the girl.
The boy's defense attorney, Ira Bordow, said it was wrong to characterize the case involving the girl as an "assault" because there was no force involved in the boy's sexual relationship with the girl, whom he considered to be his "girlfriend."
Bordow also contended that the boy was not aware of the girl's true age and that she claimed to be 13. Both the prosecutor and the girl's mother disputed that assertion and said the boy had been made aware that the girl was younger than she claimed.
Brown said that the girl "looked older" but acted very young and that the 16-year-old boy should have known better.
The girl had an abortion shortly after her pregnancy came to light.
In court Thursday, the boy apologized to the victim's mother, who had urged the judge not to be "too severe" in punishing the boy but also to make the teenager understand the consequences of his actions.
Martens imposed and stayed a sentence of one year in a juvenile prison, which means the boy could be incarcerated for that amount of time if he violates the rules of probation.
Martens also ordered the boy to have no contact with the girl or her family and to register as a sex offender.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 24, 2002.
The calculus of natural selection would seem to favor women conceiving at the youngest possible age and being able to bear the pregnancy upon the onset of puberty.
There are doctors who can easily be induced to do literally anything. Boundary violations with patients have become epidemic, doctors starve terminal patients to death by withdrawing IVs and nutrition (with court approval!), illegally euthanize elderly patients with morphine overdose. The Hippocratic Oath is no longer taken seriously and they are even contemplating it's elimenation. Welcome to Brave New World!
I will never forget the materials stating that 16 year olds should be able to do whatever adults did. I had almost no support from clergy in fighting this. They keeled over and played dead, even though it was a conservative and largely Evangelical town.
The most hostility I have received from church members has been from being pro-life and pro-hetero.
I know what we intend to do with my nephew, of whom I have custody. He is going to an all-boys boarding school, since we don't want a repeat of his mother's promiscuous behavior.
My point is that the messages that adults send to children, the morals we teach them, the license we give them result in terrible consequenses.
Our modern society has so devalued sex that the attitude exhibited by the young man is, unfortunately, quite prevalant. And really, considering the messages sent by today's music, TV, movies, and certain ex-presidents, in combination with the libertine values promoted in academia, from the sex-ed classes to the textbooks, on what moral ground can society stand and condemn this boy? He has been well-programmed. He is an enlightened, open-minded, free-thinking modern man. No myopic worldview there.
Indeed.
Perhaps the judge in this case thought the teen would get too little satisfaction out of repeated attempts to impregnate him in prison?
As much as I'm opposed to abortion, believing that the only time it's appropriate is if the mother's life is in danger, this is probably one of those times. While a 10 year old's ovaries and uterous may be mature enough to be impregnated, the rest of her body certainly isn't, especially her pelvic region. If she kept the baby to term, she would certainly be forced to have a c-section, if she survived the pregnancy.
Mark
The 16 year old had no fear of his consequences and the 10 year old was too stupid to refuse.
I would whip their parents and the judge.
I have to wonder, if having children so young is such a threat to a girl's life, why they would become fertile at that age and therefore susceptible to becoming pregnant. Just in terms of Darwinian evolution, it doesn't make sense, since not only do you lose the incipient child, you also lose the mother and all other children she might bear.
The calculus of natural selection would seem to favor women conceiving at the youngest possible age and being able to bear the pregnancy upon the onset of puberty.
The hysteria about very young women/children getting pregnant is rather recent, and is a Western cultural belief derived in part by the desire to extend childhood as long as possible and to delay adulthood for various reasons having to do with property rights and educational practices. It has little or nothing to do with the alleged danger of dieing during childbirth. In fact, I rather suspect that the danger is far greater for older women in childbirth, albeit modern medicine makes the risks considerably less.
Historically, my own anecdotal memory of women dieing in childbirth points towards it being a major problem for older women, not for teenagers. But I don't have any data to back that up and I am too lazy to research such a question on a holiday.
I don't know about 10-year olds, but overall biology favors the young having children, not the old, as you surmise. If the child in question "looked mature for her age" - ie, if she looked sexually mature - odds are that she would stand a better chance of having a successful birth then, say, a 40-year old woman.
That's just a pure observation of the facts of biology; it in no way endorses the horrendous sexual practices and cavalier attitudes displayed in this story.
WITH ADULTS LIVING LIKE, TALKING LIKE AND MAKING MOVIES LIKE THE ONLY INTERESTING, WORTHWHILE ACTION ON THE PLANET IS BETWEEN THE SHEETS WITH ANYTHING THAT WIGGLES OF MORE OR LESS ANY AGE--how do we hold teens or younger responsible at all? MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO. . . . right into the doodoo.
The calculus of natural selection would seem to favor women conceiving at the youngest possible age and being able to bear the pregnancy upon the onset of puberty.
I've read that ther eare a number of theories: Better nutrition is one, but another is that nearly everything we eat from animals, whether it's mild, meat, or poultry, has additional growth hormones, in order to get the animals to mature faster. There's a line of thought that the additional hormones are collected in the meat, and as we eat it, we collect it in our systems. And as we feed our children, they get the additional hormones and mature at a faster rate. However, soft tissue is able to grow and mature faster than the skelatal system.
Mark
The point I was trying to make (and was not too clear about) - the most basic Christian principles should make conclusions about abortion and homosexuality obvious. But it was not. That is a universal problem. The established denominations (Protestant and Roman Catholic) have led the way in undermininng our society.
Maybe you're right. When I was a 10 y/o girl I don't think I knew what sex was though. But kids grow up faster now.
Sheesh, that makes me sound old.
I don't know if this is is enviro-wacko hysteria or real science. I doubt anybody really knows.
So Bill Clinton did have an illegitimate child?
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