14 Year Old Gives Birth and Strangle Infant

[RedRoseSpiral]

14 Year Old Gives Birth and Strangle Infant

Changing Our Response to Infanticide

This is sad all around. How can you not realize your skinny, 14 year old is pregnant with a 9 1/2 lbs baby? I pray for a justice for both the infant and Cassidy. There are two victims in this.

[Aethian]

One of my cousins could hide a kid that big and only look like she at a big meal.

As for the rest of this...right now I have no words.

[Panacea]

There is no excuse for this in this day and age. All states have safe surrender laws.

Drop the kid off at a hospital, fire station, or police station. No questions asked.

[fireheart17]

There is no excuse for this in this day and age. All states have safe surrender laws.

Drop the kid off at a hospital, fire station, or police station. No questions asked.

I'm thinking of a few reasons why the kid wouldn't have done it:

1) Kid was in shock after birth and may have dissociated or similar? (Pain can make you do very strange things)

2) Kid may not have access to a fire station, hospital or police station to the point where she could take the baby safely.

3) Kid may not even be fully aware of the safe surrender laws (i.e. that she believes because she's under 18, she'll get in trouble), or even that said safe surrender laws exist.

[Teysa]

This is just a bad situation all around. I don't think the girl should be let off with a slap on the wrist. At the same time, I don't think putting her in an adult prison is the answer either. At the very least, she needs psychiatric evaluation.

Yes, the death of her baby is tragic; however, calling for her head won't bring the baby back. Also, in regards to the Safe Haven laws, how was she supposed to get her child to a safe place if she was too scared to let her parents know she was pregnant in the first place?

[BlaqueKatt]

Also, in regards to the Safe Haven laws, how was she supposed to get her child to a safe place if she was too scared to let her parents know she was pregnant in the first place?

I'm thinking of a few reasons why the kid wouldn't have done it:

1) Kid was in shock after birth and may have dissociated or similar? (Pain can make you do very strange things)

2) Kid may not have access to a fire station, hospital or police station to the point where she could take the baby safely.

3) Kid may not even be fully aware of the safe surrender laws (i.e. that she believes because she's under 18, she'll get in trouble), or even that said safe surrender laws exist.

nope it was premeditated

When asked why she didn't come forth, Cassidy told police she didn't want to change the relationship between her and her parents.

Her two aunts say that they suspected their niece was pregnant and that Cassidy's mother, Teresa Goodson, allowed the girl to take a pregnancy test in private. Teresa Goodson's sisters repeatedly warned the mother that Cassidy was pregnant.

[fireheart17]

nope it was premeditated

The article you quoted also mentions that she "didn't know what to do with it".

Which somewhat backs up point #3 I made...either she wasn't taught about safe surrender laws correctly or taught about them at all.

[Andara Bledin]

Considering that she killed the child to stay in good graces with her mother, I'm going to go with the "barefoot and ignorant" line of thinking.

This is what happens when we don't teach girls how their bodies work and what their options (all of their options) are.

^-.-^

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I honestly don't know which way to go on this particular instance. What I do know, however, is that we should take this as an example and learn from it. We need to stop pretending that teen pregnancy will never occur, and need to realize that sex education must be based off of scientific fact.

Fact: Humans are animals. We are wired to get it on. We all have varying degrees to which our DNA tells us to have sex (some more, some less) but for the vast majority, sex occurs.

Teaching children about sex, how to have safe sex, and what occurs to the body during pregnancy, and what they can do about it, is going to lower the cases of teen pregnancy. Girls will understand that just because their boyfriend doesn't like to wrap it, doesn't mean she should let him run free with her interior organs. It will slowly stamp out the "this can't possibly happen to me" because it will stamp out all those silly "you can't get pregnant if..." myths.

We need to address this problem head on, not let squeemish parents or over zealous religious nuts control sex education.

It always boggles my mind when I hear parents say, "Well I don't want my child learning about that!" WHY!? They've honestly deluded themselves into believing that if their child is not taught about sex, the child will just automatically become abstinent and never have it until they're married and ready to have children of their own.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Reminds me of the uproar that happened back when I was a teen cuz some teenage girl magazines had graphic "sealed sex sections" included. Personally, I learned more from those magazines than I ever did from sex ed; at least someone was trying to educate teenage girls on sex!

[fireheart17]

Reminds me of the uproar that happened back when I was a teen cuz some teenage girl magazines had graphic "sealed sex sections" included. Personally, I learned more from those magazines than I ever did from sex ed; at least someone was trying to educate teenage girls on sex!

They still do those "sealed" sections. Dolly does them, I think Girlfriend "did" them (haven't looked recently) and Cosmopolitan doesn't need to do them.

Luckily, sex education programs down here are actually fairly detailed and cover stuff like condom use. The rest I learned from a book that Dolly magazine released (and I think I still have somewhere) which had one chapter on sex, including information about contraception, myths and then some of the more common questions that came up. (thankfully none of the stupid "OMG is it normal for my vagina to smell like that?" type ones)

Probably what needs to be emphasised is that condoms aren't always enough and that hormonal contraception can have added benefits (several people have mentioned those benefits on the forums). A bit of research conducted through the one abortion clinic in my state (there's one based out of a hospital down my way, but it's in the hospital and thus protesters can't say anything , that's not the clinic I'm thinking of though) revealed that the most common reason were due to contraception failure (pill or condom).

This is why I tend to argue for sex education being taught in schools. Even though it half-falls under the "frills" category and half-falls under the "health and PE essentials" category, I still consider it a vital component. Why? because parents don't always educate their children about it or if they do, it's not looked at thoroughly or correctly.

I really want to create a web page that teaches children about sexual education safely and thoroughly and also incorporates cultural beliefs, since I think this is where the issue lies. You can teach sexual education and sexual attitudes to children from different backgrounds without causing them to have sex.

[b2addm]

She didn't know what to do with it...so the only thing that came to mind was strangulation? WTF? That's the ONLY thing she could come up with?

[fireheart17]

She didn't know what to do with it...so the only thing that came to mind was strangulation? WTF? That's the ONLY thing she could come up with?

See my first post. But I'll elaborate further:

Aside from the fact that pain can make you do some very abnormal things, there are a few other factors to go with it.

1) She hadn't told anyone else about it for fear of being criminalised, disowned, whatever. So what's she meant to do "Oh yeah mum, I just had a baby, let's go and buy some clothes for it?" -.-

2) No way for her to get to a safe haven, or alternately that she wasn't even aware that the particular law existed.

3) If it had been found alive, it may have somehow come back to haunt her later on in life.