April 11, 2006

Disposable Children?

I always look around the various news sites to see what the headlines are. Today there were a number of headlines that just screamed out to me.

Man Convicted for Drowning Children in Lake

Woman: I Slashed Baby's Throat for Revenge

Entwistle Pleads Not Guilty to Killing Wife, Baby

Babysitter with AIDS Appears in Court on New Charge

Ricky Holland's Parents to Stand Trial

Woman Charged in Newborn's Death Held on $3M Bond

Summarizing these articles: A man kills his girlfriend's three children by drowning them in a lake, a woman puts a baby face down in a snowdrift and slashes its throat to retaliate against its mother, a man pleads not guilty for killing his wife and less than one year old child, a babysitter with AIDS sexually molests the kids he babysits and possibly infects one of them with the disease, a baby's parents are charged with his murder and a woman is charged with killing her healthy newborn and dumping the body in a 55 gallon trash can.

...and it doesn't stop there. There are *dozens* of stories out there about parents killing their children, people killing other people's kids, babysitters harming the kids they are responsible for taking care of, and the reasons don't add up. Nor do the pleas. "I'm not guilty for killing those kids...I'm insane." "...this story about me sexually molesting these kids is b.s. (and so is the possibility that I may have infected them with AIDS)" "...I didn't do it...I found their bodies and decided to fly back to England because I'm sooo alone."

I know there have been stories like this for some time, but it seems as though we have been overwhelmed with one case after another where adults make the decision to harm or kill young kids. Do they think their lives are that meaningless and disposable? How does one get to point A to point B...like the decision to slice a baby's throat as revenge for getting kicked out (um, because the killer wasn't paying rent and was causing problems)?

I know that throughout the history of this blog I've raised all of these questions independent of one another. I can't help but see a very ugly trend here - kids seem to be expendable to these parents...to these babysitters and these "boyfriends" or "stepparents." Where the hell do they get the idea? How in the hell would they rationalize acting on it?

I'm sure it's because they are wired differently. There are many people in this world who are faced with almost cruel fate - unexpected deaths of family members, mental illness, poverty, abuse. But the majority choose to rise above it and, while struggling, still understand the sanctity of life. When I read these articles, the decisions these criminals made are a direct slap in the face of those who walked away versus acting on their heated emotions.

I may never fully understand the mindset of these murderers and life destroyers, but I do understand one thing. Regardless of their path to make the decision to murder, the punishment should fit the crime. A child murderer should never freely walk the streets again.