From -- of all places -- the newspaper: Baby found in dumpster. Dead.
So we have here:
-Contraception Fail. If either party even bothered.
-Mothering Fail
-Fatherhood Fail: where's the daddy? Or did he help?
-Family Fail: Like that's a surprise. One wonders how often the abandoning mothers were thrown out -- or feared they would be if their condition was discovered?
-Public-Relations Fail: I quote: "Indiana's Safe Haven Law lets a parent who cannot care for an infant younger than 45 days old leave the baby with staff at hospitals, police stations or firehouses. The parents do not have to identify themselves or explain their actions, as long as the baby is unharmed."
Got that? You can go to any hospital, police officer station or firehouse with a tiny baby, hand the infant over and shamble out; no questions asked. So, how's it working out? Again, I quote, emphasis mine: "Six babies have been legally abandoned in Indiana since 2001. During that same time, 22 babies in Indiana were abandoned illegally, and seven of them died." WTF?
Y'know, I find this more horrifying than abortion and unlike that contentious topic, there aren't two sides and haven't been since Rome fell. Infanticide is a crime. It is immoral. There are other options, options that don't result in the baby's death (one chance in three of survival, so far) and the mother being tracked down, arrested, charged, probably tried and likely convicted.
In the absence of reason I can only offer prayer.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post, by the way. It makes me sick to my stomach to see this happen.
ReplyDeleteIt is just unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteThere are no monsters, only people like that.
ReplyDeleteJim
A mother leaving her own live baby in the garbage, like an old shoe or a balled up napkin, hopelessly crying out for succor and warmth and the loving embrace of its mother, unto its dying breath, is an abomination as well as a sin that cries out to heaven that leaves me shaken every time I hear or read about it. That type of story never ceases to ruin my day.
ReplyDeleten 318 CE Constantine I considered infanticide a crime, and in 374 CE Valentinian I made infanticide a capital offense.
ReplyDeleteOffenders were rarely prosecuted, but somehow I am willing to give law enforcement some slack when in comes to patrolling all of western civilization with the most rapid means of communication being a swift horse...
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ReplyDeleteRoberta, you're way too nice. Me, we would track down the baby momma and the baby daddy, and be sure that neither of them could do anything like this ever again.
ReplyDeleteOr do anything else, for that matter.
"I find this more horrifying than abortion and unlike that contentious topic, there aren't two sides and haven't been since Rome fell."
ReplyDeleteGoogle "baby farming" some time (preferably when you aren't planning to eat for a day or two). This sort of thing is much more common in history than you think.
I'd say something snarky, but it's just sad.
ReplyDeleteMy brother had to go to Russia to adopt my nieces and nephew.
In the B*ble, it says, "The sins of the fathers are visited on the children, even unto the seventh generation."
ReplyDeleteI've never seen this as a G8dly commandment to actually VISIT those sins. More along the lines of an observation of fact and the nature of things.
M
Maybe they need to come up with baby recycling centers. Like with soda cans, only with babies. Then homeless people would have their eye out for the poor little buggers and turn them in for spare change.
ReplyDeleteYes I know, not even I can believe I'm cracking jokes about this, but in my defence it is a coping mechanism.
Oh and Freeholder, if you ever do get a mandate to hunt down baby killers. I want in.
s
wv: reackc The sound I made when I read about yet another baby in the trash.