Fighting the Urge to Look Away…
Posted
December 15, 2006 at
2:26 am by
Redsy
From today’s Bellingham Herald:
About 4 p.m. on May 29, law enforcement officers were called to a house in the 4100 block of Tiopi Loop, where an adult was performing CPR on 4?‚??-monthold Tyrell Jackson. Attempts at resuscitation failed and firefighters noticed Tyrell was ???‚¬?“emaciated and appeared to be nothing more than skin and bones.”
Further investigation found that the infant in question had been starved to death.
According to the investigators, it takes “weeks” for a baby to die of malnutrition. The mother in the case is now being charged with first degree murder.
While historically infanticide has been a feature of societies including ancient India, China, and Greece among others, the modern propensity to murder our children seems particularly stark, given the degree of medical advances and options for population control we’ve achieved.
According to Dr. Larry Milner, of the Society for the Prevention of Infanticide, infanticide is directly correlated to maternal age, level of education and employment, drug abuse, poverty and other criminal behavior. Women are more likely than men to murder their babies, with white women more likely than black women to do so. “Most of the murders today are committed with the use of the mother’s hands, either by strangulation or physical punishment,” states Dr. Milner.
A 1998 article on CNN.com, points out that the ability of caseworkers to intervene when risk of severe abuse and neglect are present has been crippled by the double-punch of funding cuts and increased need for service.
“Most of the million cases of child abuse each year end up on the desk of the nation’s child protective services caseworkers, who must make life and death decisions even though they lack adequate time, tools and money to protect children.”
One can imagine it has only gotten worse since 1998.
What is one to make of this? Will more money, more programs help dissuade those on the edge from harming or killing their children? I know some of my favorite Libertarians disagree, but I have to believe that structural and endemic changes are required in order for these key risk factors to be addressed and in order for these moms to not feel so desperate that the only option they see is ending their child’s life.
Tags: News-&-Politics |
7 Responses to “Fighting the Urge to Look Away…”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
1. Sonia said:
December 15, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Thanks for sharing this story. Being a liberal Democrat, I am sort of hard-wired to supporting the idea that taxes (which even when they are low, still seem high) should go to ADEQUATELY fund social programs. But I also believe that, with proper funding and controls over waste/abuse, these programs do a wonderful job of protecting those unable to protect themselves.
I also feel a push, both personally and culturally, that we need to connect with our neighbors. I don’t know any more about this story than I read above, but I can’t help wondering where the people living around this family were while this infant died a slow and agonizing death. We all weep for this child’s pain and the loss of this gift of life. Please use this as a push to reach out to your neighbors; to connect with them in times of joy and health, and in times of need and stress.
And I pray that Tyrell’s mother can learn to use her life, whatever it will now be, to bring peace into the world, not death and pain.
2. Paige said:
December 15, 2006 @ 10:33 pm
Something has to be done, but I’m not sure what it is and where to start. The changes need to be made at so many levels and in so many institutions in order to truly help these children. I say this, because after a year of mentoring a little girl in an inner city elementary school, I saw things about this girl’s family life that terrified me and broke my heart. When I spoke up and tried to do something about it because I was concerned that this little girl would be seriously harmed, A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL asked me to forget what I had seen because the child would be better off if child protective services wasn’t involved. When I flipped out and asked her how the hell that could be, she told me to quit while I was ahead. Ultimately the child was shipped off to live with family in Brooklyn, but you really have to wonder what the hell kind of world we live in where we’re asked to look the other way when a child’s welfare is at stake.
3. Jessica said:
December 17, 2006 @ 8:02 am
My real quick analysis is that:
a) The general public cares very little about children — believes adults are way more valuable and thinks they (babies and children)Ă‚Â are fairly disposable
b) The ultra-left champions the perpetrators of infanticide and mothers killing their own children and hailed them as good mothers having a bad day and obstructing true justice (see Andrea Yates). They make all the excuses necessary for women to torture and kill their babies/children (and I’m not talking about abortion here, but it may be an extension of the celebration of it.)
c) It has also become a feminist issue. You never hear feminists or ultra-libs fighting for the rights of men that have murdered their children, only women, and white women at that. You just don’t see the NOW fighting for the black woman who microwaved her baby, but you see them fighting for middle class white women who just as calculatingly murder their children.
In my opinion, it isn’t about money, but it’s about taking responsibility for our children and holding those who take care of them accountable. We need an attitude readjustment in this country. Instead of this attitude that says, “What’s done is done,” we need to say, “Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen or happens as rarely as possible.”
Perpetrators need to stop getting light sentences for harming children. We need to give social workers the tools to take cases to DA’s office and prosecute these people to the fullest extent of the law. It shouldn’t be a 3 strikes policy on child abusers/predators. They should get life for abusing children, even if they haven’t murdered them.
The ACLU should not be fighting to allow sexual predators the ability to be around and work around children, as they have been trying to do for so many years. People should be ashamed of themselves. We need to stop awarding these heinous acts and put our children first!
End rant.
4. Gunfighter said:
December 17, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
I’m not sure thqat government programs are the answer, nor am I convinced that if we all just “cared a little more” that this sort of thing will end.
I’m smart enough to know that there are no simple, sound-bite answers.
I’m also smart enough to know that this issue has nothing to do with the “ultraleft” (whomever that might be) being the champions of infanticide (what nonsense).
5. Jessica Carlson said:
December 17, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
[quote comment="34681"]
I’m also smart enough to know that this issue has nothing to do with the “ultraleft” (whomever that might be) being the champions of infanticide (what nonsense).[/quote]
It isn’t nonsense IME. I have only (personally) heard two people that supported infanticide in this country and that was some ultra left leaning person on the dailykos and another ultra left leaning person on another political site.
Also, who do you think help to pay for Andrea Yates first trial? — The NOW. Who’s fighting for the rights of pedophiles? — The ACLU. Who champions as little time and punishment for atrocities against children as possible? — It certainly isn’t the moderates!
While I agree there are no easy answers, I still believe that if we, as a society, had more respect for children, abuse and murder of children wouldn’t be just another news story. Abuse of children is rampant and it shouldn’t be.
Sure, the apathy probably runs on both sides, but I do believe the biggest contradiction on the ultra-left is their lack of support for children. They’re willing to fund a thousand programs, but when push comes to shove, they support the worth and value of women (and adults in general) over children, IMO.
6. Rachael said:
December 17, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
The only thing I’d add is that other than the ACLU and NOW and other established groups, how is one to claim that either the Left OR the Right gives a damn when abuse/neglect/murder happens as frequently as it does. I think it goes deeper than this polarity. I think it speaks to the underpinnings (or lack thereof) of a civil society. IF we lack teh basic moral decency to care for young and old, then we’ve lost our grip on what matters.
7. Jessica said:
December 18, 2006 @ 8:36 am
[quote comment="35282"]The only thing I’d add is that other than the ACLU and NOW and other established groups, how is one to claim that either the Left OR the Right gives a damn when abuse/neglect/murder happens as frequently as it does. I think it goes deeper than this polarity. I think it speaks to the underpinnings (or lack thereof) of a civil society. IF we lack the basic moral decency to care for young and old, then we’ve lost our grip on what matters.[/quote]
I agree for the most extent, however, I do believe it to be a partisan issue politically but a bi-partisan issue socially. You don’t see moderates and republicans advocating for pedophiles and the criminally insane and mothers who kill their children on a whole. That’s how I see it.
I do think some concrete solutions would include mandatory baby well check-ups, whereas if you missed one, you would have a nurse check in on you.
I also think that severally mentally ill parents should not be allowed to care for their small children alone. I think that a doctor should be able to easily request a court order to prevent severally mentally ill people from being alone with their children with periodic checks from the police force and social workers.
I also think that our society needs to get away from victimizing the victim. In the case of Andrea Yates, a certain segment of our society cared more about Andrea Yates feelings of self-worth than they did about her children. Most people that kill their children are mentally ill, however we cannot allow that to negate justice and civility. We cannot allow it to become an excuse. For societies sake, there needs to be a very clear boundary and consequence for these actions, regardless of their mental state. We cannot acquit people because they are mentally ill. Mental illness does not give you the right and excuse to harm your children.