timetokill
Banned
"It takes a village to create a murderer."
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14 year old girl has baby in toilet and then kills it
- Thread starter Zee-Row
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"It takes a village to create a murderer."
Certainly I agree with that sentiment up to a point.
However the presence of mind to check for a pulse and then methodically strangle a new born and check its pulse again until its dead is cold, callous and calculating.
Fucked up situation in which the only real victim is a the little baby who had such a terrible few seconds of existence.
Don't know what else to say, feel sick.
R.I.P Little One x
Good sex education would've put these things in her head.
Children starting puberty should be taught about all the effective methods of birth control offered, taught how to use them correctly, and taught what to do in the event of an unwanted pregnancy.
You can't teach kids what to do with an unwanted pregnancy if you just yell at them to not have sex and then just pretend they won't.
MasterOfPastures
Banned
This is terrible. A crossroads that merges the lack of sex-ed, demonisation of contraceptives, dejected parents and teenage behavior.
And all this could come back, if Roe vs. Wade is struck down. That's what scares me.
And all this could come back, if Roe vs. Wade is struck down. That's what scares me.
Devolution
Member
She needs to be institutionalized for a while in a mental health facility then released with probation. The ones who should be held criminally responsible so far includes the mother.
I'm going to guess we have no definitive stats on that. Or are we just repeating what advocacy groups say?
'Common' is a pretty loaded term. That would seem to mean a significant portion of the population. Not less than 2-3 percent.
speculawyer
Member
14 is not 'just a child'. But I agree that she is not an adult. You can't just let her off though.
Always relevant in these situations:
Dave Chapelle - How old is 15, really?
BTW, I laughed at 4th trimester abortion
ItAintEasyBeinCheesy
it's 4th of July in my asshole
Better education would be better, but they can have all the education in the world and it wont matter if they are too scared to do anything with it.
couldn't you make the same case for all of histories monstrous individuals?
matty2Dfraud
Banned
Figured this would either be Florida or Texas. huge surprise.
Devolution
Member
No?
umop_3pisdn
Member
I wouldn't say that the girl isn't a victim, she can even be a victim of her decision. Actions bear fruit, I don't think that this girl has somehow secured her happiness by killing the baby. That's worth some empathy.
brochiller
Member
Sorry but this is definitely avatar quote worthy.
On a related note I know a girl who didn't know she was pregnant until she actually went into labor and had to be taken to the hospital. I have no idea how this happens.
timetokill
Banned
Ugh, I just made myself feel awful by suddenly wondering if she had thought of a name for the kid at some point or not :\
unknownhero
Member
I don't care how scared she was, it doesn't changed the fact that she killed a baby. It wasn't accidental, it was done by choice and for selfish reasons. so yeah, I say let's treat her as an adult. Her mom is also a peice of garbage for completely ignoring her pregency. I really hate living in florida.....
She likely never did. That would've likely made her too attached the baby to just strangle it.
Putting her in jail won't exactly protect society so I don't see the point in spending the money. She needs therapy and sex education.
shanshan310
Member
I don't think she did, thus the result. She obviously couldn't see telling her family, or adoption, or even abortion as viable options, and getting rid of the baby was probably the only option she thought she had left.
Devolution
Member
The fact that adults in her life should and could have intervened and she's still a child? Do you know what an unwanted pregnancy can do to normal well adjusted adults? Now imagine you're a clueless middle schooler and the adults in your life are helping your denial. Then the day actually comes when reality sets in and she freaks out hoping to extinguish what she considers the only evidence of her crime of getting pregnant in the first place.
timetokill
Banned
Not sure you want to set a precedent that "murdering your newborn isn't bad enough for jail," honestly.
ClassyPenguin
Banned
speculawyer
Member
A 14 year old knows killing a baby is wrong.
She just did not want to deal with telling her mom, figuring out what to do with the baby, and . . . . perhaps (sadly) most importantly didn't want all her peers as school to hear about it. It was clearly a bad decision but she knew it was wrong.
The whole idea behind jail was supposed to be to separate the dangerous people from the rest of us. It's since been expanded way past that point at incredible cost to tax payers for little to no payoff in safety.
The only thing this girl is a danger to is her future babies. What she needs is therapy and sex education to solve that problem, not to be locked in jail for 20 years with hardened criminals.
OMG ;_______________;
You sure do stealth edit your posts a lot.
computers putin'
Member
You're right, this child's parents totally failed her first. She needed guidance from somewhere and obviously got it from nobody.Had their relationship been more open, her parents could have steered her away from this; this girl deserved to know that she had options . It doesn't totally absolve the girl ofl blame though(what she did is still incredibly cold), but I do think her mother deserves a good amount of blame for sweeping her pregnancy under the rug; that was total neglect on her part.
shanshan310
Member
Well yes, but she obviously thought it was less wrong than getting pregnant and having a child. Which is really, really disturbing.
Devolution
Member
It's just a by product of the sex shaming, abstinence only education that also comes with sex before marriage is wrong as is birth control. If her mother actually bothered to be invested in her life and knew her kid was sexually active she should have taken her to the doc first thing. Not let her just take some tests "in private" to prove she wasn't pregnant.
That idea has expanded to include punishments to deter those thinking about committing the crimes. You could argue that a person murdering a cheating spouse wouldn't do it again and is not a threat to society but I doubt anybody would agree they don't belong in prison.
Even if there are a lot of other people to blame, including her parents and school who deserve the majority of it, she still deserves more than guilt as a punishment for killing a baby.
I just came back in here and I feel I have to say that Devo is owning this goddamn thread.
http://youtu.be/uNwNM-h9QQc?t=07s
http://youtu.be/uNwNM-h9QQc?t=07s
speculawyer
Member
Exactly. She felt she was in a shit situation no matter what and picked what she thought would be the easiest way to deal with it.
And here is a scary thought . . . I wonder how many times this happens and the girl get away with it. Had she buried the offspring, she might have got away with it. Probably best that she got caught because that would have haunted her forever. (Well, it will still haunt her but at least she can feel that she did penance for her crime.)
She's too young to even drive herself to one...
Well no, you could easily argue that someone who would murder a cheating spouse is a threat to society if their reaction to jealousy, anger, and frustration is homicide.
And it's actually been demonstrated statistically that states that use the death penalty explicitly because it's intended to deter future crimes do not have a lower homicide rate than states that no longer have the death penalty. The theory of prison as deterrent does exist, but is highly flawed.
speculawyer
Member
Meh . . . it is 4 things:
1) Incapacitation (as you mentioned)
2) Deterrence
3) Punishment
4) Rehabilitation.
Secret Fawful
Member
Put it on a stranger's doorstep. At the very least if she's going to be selfish to that extreme she might as well have relieved herself of the responsibility instead of KILLING IT.
timetokill
Banned
The others beat me to it, but that's not all jail was supposed to be at any point ever. A lot of people commit crimes they would never commit again, but you still put them away because as a society you have to say that it's unacceptable. You have to punish the wrongdoer and let other people know that doing as such will not be tolerated in our society. You can make efforts to rehabilitate them but you can't just throw your hands up and say, "oh what a terrible situation, but I'm sure she's learned her lesson! Just look at that hang-dog expression," etc.
Devolution
Member
I had a mom who was incredibly sheltered (her own mother didn't even tell her what a period was) and she was sure I would not go through that mess. I got comprehensive sex education in 5th grade, middle school and high school as well as books from my parents. At 16 I told my mother I had a boyfriend and the first words out of her mouth were "well you've wanted regular periods and you have a bf now? No better time to get you some birth control." And we did just that. But even before I was 16 my parents made for damn sure I could come to them if and when something happened. This girl obviously never had that and this is the result.
The fact that she didn't explore other options because it meant telling her mother she was indeed pregnant should tell us what we need to know. Her mother is the one criminally responsible and the girl needs some mental rehabilitation as soon as possible.
Extra Sauce
Member
Not cool.
It isn't like she got an abortion or something, she flat out murdered a baby.
There is no way around it, what she did is evil.
Devolution
Member
Do you really think an abortion is that easy to obtain? At 14?
Easy or not, she still committed murder. You can't just overlook that.
Devolution
Member
RustyNails
Member
Noisy Ninj4
Member
You're right, they ought to just give that 14 year old girl the chair.
If not knowing how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy is evil, full stop, what word do you want use for an adult who has a child, keeps that child, and then neglects the development of that child to the point that the young girl is incapable of making safe and sane decisions and doesn't have the support system she needs to deal with an unwanted pregnancy?
A lot of people keep quoting the scissors thing to illustrate how monstrous they think the girl was when it actually is a pretty good illustration of how uninformed and desperate she seems to be. Tell me: how many GAFers would move a pair of scissors around their own genitals? What mental state and level of understanding about your own body do you think would be necessary for you to do so? She could have severely and permanently harmed herself as well, but her priority was keeping the pregnancy secret from her mother -- above and beyond the life of her child and even her own safety. That says a lot.
Like obviously this story is upsetting and horrifying but people throwing around words like "evil" seem like they want to simplify this as something a monster would do that couldn't have been prevented because evil is evil. The real tragedy here is how easily this could have been avoided if an adult parent had done their damn job.
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