Posted on 09/16/2011 1:34:41 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
An Alberta judge has let a woman who strangled her newborn son walk free by arguing that Canada’s absence of a law on abortion signals that Canadians “sympathize” with the mother.
“We live in a country where there is no protection for children in the womb right up until birth and now this judge has extended the protection for the perpetrator rather than the victim, even though the child is born and as such should be protected by the court,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition.
Katrina Effert of Wetaskiwin, Alberta gave birth secretly in her parents’ downstairs bathroom on April 13, 2005, and then later strangled the newborn and threw his body over a fence. She was 19 at the time.
She has been found guilty of second-degree murder by two juries, but both times the judgment was thrown out by the appeals court. In May, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned her 2009 murder conviction and replaced it with the lesser charge of infanticide.
On Friday, Effert got a three-year suspended sentence from Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. As a result, she was able to walk out of court, though she will have to abide by certain conditions.
According to Justice Veit, Canada’s lack of an abortion law indicates that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”
“Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother,” she added.
Under Canada’s Criminal Code, a woman who has not “fully recovered” from the effects of birth can be found guilty of the lesser charge of infanticide. To bring forward the infanticide defense, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, there must be evidence that the woman’s mind was disturbed.
According to the Crown, the evidence showed Effert was not suffering mental disturbance. They highlighted the fact that she planned for the birth by getting scissors to cut the umbilical cord and towels, and then hiding in the bathroom in her parents’ basement. They suggested that she had tried to miscarry the child during pregnancy by smoking and drinking. She lied during initial police questioning, claiming she was a virgin.
But Justice Veit agreed with defense lawyer Peter Royal, saying that this was “a classic infanticide case — the killing of a newborn after a hidden pregnancy by a mother who was alone and unsupported.”
Pro-life advocates have warned for years that widespread acceptance of abortion will open the door to greater societal acceptance of infanticide, beginning with the euthanizing of disabled newborns. Infanticide proponent Peter Singer, a top ethicist at Princeton University, has said, for example, “there is no sharp distinction between the foetus and the newborn baby.”
Though he once was considered to be on the radical fringe, Singer’s views are becoming more mainstream. For example, the world’s most prestigious bioethics journal, The Hastings Center Report, published in 2008 an enthusiastic defense of the Netherlands’ practice of euthanizing newborns.
“Where will it end: a one month old child whose parent has decided is not worthy of life, a six month old child, a two year old child, a special needs child or how about a teenager?” asked Hughes.
“It is time that Parliament, whose duty it is to protect and legislate regarding the Constitution, examine its duty with regard to the first constitutional right - ‘the right to life’ and enact legislation which recognizes that life begins at conception and must be protected from that time until natural death,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of CLC. “The mother’s stress cannot equate to the loss of a lifetime for the child.”
bump for later viewing
your logic is poison, the epitomy of sophistry. .... the invisib1e hand
Not really.
The Judge did not give permission to kill. The infant was already dead.
If a routine conviction had occurred, that infant's death would have passed, unnoticed, except for an article in the local paper, and the infant would still be dead.
As it is, the ruling has put the entire issue of late term abortion not only in the Canadian headlines but in the American headlines.
The infant, instead of dying without notice, is now the face of a moral debate that will now start in Canada. From beyond the grave, that infant has now been given a voice in that moral debate.
Whether the Judge intended it to be that way is uncertain but the fact remains that such is the end result of the ruling.
You have no concept, apparently, of the nature of authority. And please don't try to "prove" to me that you do. You've already told me all I need to know about it.
I hear you, but it’s still appalling.
bump
You’re right, there is no difference.
Who, except you, invisib1e hand, said anything about "authority"?
MrB expressed an opinion, on an opinion forum, and gave an explanation for it.
I expressed an opinion, on an opinion forum, and gave an explanation for it.
All you have done is throw out two ad hominem attacks in a row, one directed at MrB and one directed at me, without even addressing any of the points brought up.
You have added absolutely nothing to this discussion except to play the role of the irate, yapping chihuahua.
In my opinion, MrB, you are correct that this ruling with force a debate in Canada about the morality of late term abortion.
Exactly.
I wonder what the acceptable age window is. If we have legal post-birth abortion and legal end of life euthanasia, don’t we need specific guidelines defining murder too. Perhaps all laws on murder and manslaughter should be amended to specify that such laws only apply to the unlawful taking of a life between 17 3/4 years of age and 59 1/2 years. That’s where libs want to take this; why not follow the short cut and jump to that standard now?
Placemark.
I didn’t expect total agreement on my posted take on this issue, and you folks don’t even know if I’m 100% behind that posting.
I just put it up as an alternative way of looking at the issue. Indeed, infanticide is a highly charged topic,
which is why it is so powerful in the anti-abortion arsenal, and it is also why the pro-”choice” people avoid it like the plague.
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