Great New Mother
Yesterday’s Star Tribune, November 29, published an article titled, “Charges allege Ohio mother microwave her baby to death�.
The evidence against the woman who brought her dead baby to the hospital includes a medical exam resulting, “He said the evidence included high-heat internal injuries and the absence of external burn marks on the baby…�.
The woman is on a million dollar bail awaiting jurisdiction. Persecution however against the woman is in where the problem lies. Because of the little if any information we have on the effects of microwave radiation on a human, the medical examiner had to simply label the death as hyperthermia, or high body temperature. This is in fact a dream for the defense attorney(s) as no solid evidence of the mother putting the baby in the microwave can be exacted. Charges will deal mostly with the assumption of purposeful death, but also child abuse, due to the fact that the woman did not bring the child in to the hospital until the morning after the death.
My response to this is how far we can continue to let these violations occur. The famous post-partum depression syndrome will most likely be attributed to the case, as with others of the like were. When does the line between mental illness and murder be defined? The excuse of a chemical imbalance has for me always been suspicious, if not ridiculous. But what is the answer, since evidentiary support is often not available. Perhaps a stronger reevaluation of medical care for expectant and new mothers, a certain social worker. Regardless the tragedy is immense, and unfortunately not extinct, but quite numerous.