There was yet another story of a college girl letting her baby die...
on the news last night. This was a former honors student, comely, upscale background. No one knew she was pregnant. She delivered in her U-Mass dorm, stuffed the baby in a plastic bag in the trash, and watched TV or chatted on the Internet while the baby was suffocating. She is charged with murder, and her folks came up with $250,000 bail.
I mention this because of your mention about people not wanting to look bad (another context, of course).
I have a real hard time in wanting this girl, who was in tears and trembling in court, to go to prison for life. To me, this is not a bad girl. This is a girl who went into utter denial that such a thing could be happening to her, something that would disappoint her parents so much, ruin her college life ... that she literally blocked out what was happening, what she was doing ... just as if it wasn't happening at all. This is a girl who would never dream of harming a baby in normal life. This is a teenager, not a grown woman.
This has been happening rather often these days, the same story.
What do you think should be done with someone like this? I just can't see making her a lifer. This is something that only happens to girls, and there is no comparable event that can befall a guy. |
