Catholic Online Forum

JMJ

Here's what acceptance of abortion does: you kill the unborn and then killing the already born becomes acceptable. Then comes the turn of the elderly and the disabled, and then of anyone whose existence is deemed too burdensome for society at 1 or 71 years of age. Hello euthanasia, eugenics, rationing of state-controlled healthcare.Sieg heil!

What matters in this story is not so much what that woman did and what would have been the appropriate penalties. We lack the necessary info about the circumstances. What really boggles the mind is the rationalization of it on behalf a soulless bureaucrat of moral relativism:
Shock: No jail time for woman who strangled newborn because Canada accepts abortion, says judge
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge- ... s-abortion

the "comprehensive approach" of the judge:

Strangle away then!


Naturally. Especially you, tovarish judge. I'm sure you are very grieved.





Don't worry, it looks like a baby, but it's really just an "onerous demand". We shouldn't interfere with strangling and throwing "onerous demands" over the fence no?

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FabrizioParty like it's 1773!

The safest place for me to be is in the center of God's will, and if that is in the line of fire, that's where I'll be-Fr. T. Vakoc

I read this story the other day.

I do have to say, though, at least the judge has proper logic to equate abortion and infanticide. The pro-life movement has been doing that for years.

The only thing is, he says they are both okay. Or at least that we can sympathize with a woman who kills a newborn because Canada is a pro-choice country. Whatever.

Remember that slippery slope people are always talking about?

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God bless,
Krista

Happily celebrating twelve years of lurking.

Several years ago we went to the local buffet. Our 18-20 year old waitress was obviously pregnant. I vaguely remember asking and having her tell us she was 7 months along, but not well enough to be positive about it.

A few months later, a dead baby was found in the same girl's car, and everybody who knew her was shocked. No one had the slightest clue that the enormous baby bump on the stick-thin girl was a baby. She, apparently, was the most surprised of all to find herself delivering a baby. I don't recall how the child died, but it was wrapped in a plastic bag in the car trunk. Everyone in the entire community circled around her to protect her so that when it went to trial, she was aquitted.

No one in the family could remember me asking about it, so I didn't feel I could go forward as a witness. But everyone in town goes to that restaurant and not a single other person went forward, either.

It was the same principle. She was shocked and unprepared, so this is what she chose to do.

Meanwhile, in my state, at least three men have killed women pregant with their children in the past few years. Apparently the women's choice was to keep their babies, and the men made other choices.

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Rose West
"May God help us not to spoil His work" (Bl. Mother Theresa)

Fabrizio,

It has been commonplace in the Common Law world for some time now that such women be charged with the lesser charge of infanticide rather than murder.

But the arguments offered in this case put a whole new twist on it.

Of course, my own countryman Prof Singer of Princeton has long argued that abortion and infanticide
are both morally acceptable. Mind you, kill and eat an animal...

A sick world.

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

Very upsetting news.

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Pax et Bonum


Schultzz

I don't understand how infanticide could be considered a lesser charge. Doesn't infanticide mean the homicide of an infant? Isn't homicide the same as murder? How then can the charges be considered differently?

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Mindi D.

You and me both my friend.

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Jeff Stevens

Mindi and Jeff,

The term "postnatal depression" is rather new. The thing itself is not. For more than a hundred years the criminal law has recognised this. Hence the distinction between murder, manslaughter and infanticide. (Intersetingly, I believe there is an Apache word meaning "new-mother-sickness".)

But the arguments offered here create a whole new "ball game". I'm not qualified to say whether this is bad law, but I am seriously appalled.

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

Depression should be a mitigating factor on sentencing.

Not a totally different crime.

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Jeff Stevens

There are already several different crimes of homicide that differ based on the willfulness of the action. Depression goes to willfulness. Perhaps then there should not be a separate crime of infanticide, but where depression is a factor, the crime does not necessarily equate to premeditated murder.

That is looking at it from a cool rational perspective. On the other hand, the innocence and utter helplessness and dependence on the parents of the victims here inflames the emotions and calls out for tougher sentences, especially where depression cannot be determined as a contributing factor. But the wickedness of certain powers considers the acceptability of a homicide to depend on the person's utility and material worth rather than the person's innocence.

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Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu

I don't think depression goes to willfullness per se. Degrees of homicide are generally distinguished by presence or absence of malice aforethought. Was the intent to kill, or was it in the heat of the moment, or was it negligence?

I would call it second degree murder (aka manslaughter in some places).

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Jeff Stevens

Jeff,



Sure depression or mental illness goes to willfulness. It certainly has impact on consideration of willfulness when it comes to mortal sin vs. venial sin. Presence or absence of malice aforethought also impacts such willfulness. Is criminal law different when it comes to determining the seriousness of the crime?

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Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu

I'm curious then, if it can be determined that someone was depressed when they killed an adult, will they be charged with a lesser degree of murder? How does the law make that distinction?

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Mindi D.

Certainly, a defense attorney who can provide expert testimony that someone was depressed when killing someone and therefore had diminished capacity to make a reasoned decision will have a tool to argue for a lesser crime or even acquittal. Undoubtedly, the prosecution will provide their own expert but depression — or, as Dean points out, any mental impairment — is a legitimate legal argument.

Whether or not it is an effective legal argument in any specific case depends on whether the jury (or judge, in a non-jury trial) is convinced of the merit of the contention.

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Mindi,

Let us suppose that a woman is regularly bashed by her husband and that she knows he is sexually abusing their daughters. One night, while he is drunk, she seizes her opportunity and kills him.

There are precedents where such cases are treated with understanding.

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

JMJ

Folks,

the problem here is not the extenuating circumstances that apply or don't apply in these cases. The problem here is the reasoning behind the judge's ruling which was NOT motivated by anything a reasonable person can see as possible extenuating circumstances in what are well-known cases of "post-partum" depression, supposing this was one. It is not the alleged "sympathy" of the "people" that can have someone walk free after having strangled a baby and thrown him over the fence. As I wrote in the OP:

As with many news items that I or others post to the board from time to time, our times are so crazy that while certainly essential to understand, it is not so much what actually happened that matters - this is not a "breaking news" service after all - but what is revealed of the mentality of the cultural and institutional establishment by the way they react to what they perceive to be the problem. Often times, even if something of what they do could be somehow warranted by the facts, the motivations they put in doing it show they're using a possibly legitimate concern to further impose their inhuman, irresponsible, irrational, idiotic, disgusting, totalitarian, and fill-in-the-blanks type of ideology.

The girl may or may not have something to somewhat lower the culpability of what she did. The judge, however, has nothing IMHO, based on the wording of her argument.

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FabrizioParty like it's 1773!

The safest place for me to be is in the center of God's will, and if that is in the line of fire, that's where I'll be-Fr. T. Vakoc

Fabrizio,



Ageed completely.

My comment above:

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

Agreed Fabrizio. And I figured it would only be a matter of time before the rest of society caught up to Peter Singer's intellectually honest (at least in this isolated) connection and moral equivalence between abortion and infanticide.

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Dean
Most people's sense of history goes back to breakfast time - Benjamin Netanyahu

When you tie these sorts of things together with the settlement given to the family of the born-disabled child, it looks like society is headed toward a world where we're required to kill our less-than-perfect unborn children.

I read a blog this week where a mother of a down's child reflected upon the fact that even in their parish, the number of down's children was abnormally low. Her own experience was that the doctors, healthcare workers, and everyone strongly pushed abortion every single time she went in for any appointment.

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Rose West
"May God help us not to spoil His work" (Bl. Mother Theresa)