Today the News and Messenger reported a very disturbing story. A Bristow couple had boarded 3 children ages 4 months, 2 and 4 years, up in a room with a sheet of drywall, amongst all sorts of filth. The oldest of the children escaped and ran to a neighbor’s house for help. The police were called and the children were placed with social services and the couple was arrested and jailed without bond.
The story is quite nasty. Perhaps nastist of all is the fact that Christina Moore has been arrested for criminal child neglect before. She was arrested in 2005 because her 22 month old twins were wandering around a junk yard in just diapers, while she slept in a camper. She lost custody of those children. So it appears that she just had herself some more kids to abuse and neglect.
At what point do the courts simply get tired of renewable kids and force this woman into either surgical or chemical sterilization? This is not a victimless crime and these victims are defenseless and unable to fight this monster mom back. Ordinarily I believe in innocent until proven guilty. I don’t feel that generous over this situation.
If it isn’t legal to sterilize habitual child abuse offenders, then it ought to be. Meanwhile, serious jail time is in order. Thank goodness the child escaped and ran for help. That is a pretty self sufficient 4 year old. I suppose the poor little thing has had to be.
Suggestion:
and who gets to determine who gets sterilized and who not? why should the children suffer for the sins of their parents? who is the final arbiter of who shall live and who shall die, who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not
That is an awful story. What a way to start the day. How do people live with themselves when they do such heinous things? So were those parents seriously at work or something, la la la, my kids are safe barricaded in that nasty room, la la la, I don’t have to pay for childcare running through their heads?
You want the courts to decide who can and can’t have children? What’s your opinion on abortion again?
It makes me want to have this woman chemically or surgically sterilized. Do I want laws to allow me to do it? No not really. It is the same instinct that makes me want to save the taxpayers some money and just hang some criminals on the spot. I usually take the cure by morning.
However, it does make for an interesting topic. What I don’t have a problem with is court-ordered norplant. It isn’t permanent. What I do have a problem with is habitual child abuse.
Don’t you want the courts and the government to stay out of your fallopian tubes?
Blood stream, fallopian tubes, hunger center. Does it really matter what I want?
It does NOT, and it will matter even less if you land in the VAHOD 13th district. 👿
@Lafayette
no kidding. And living in the 50th isn’t a whole lot better if you look at the votes. Its just that the 50th boss isn’t as vocal. The votes are the same, however.
This story makes me re-think my position on capital punishment.
I hope that a good and impartial jury of fine county citizens finds her guilty and puts them both away for a very long time.
I want the male to go to jail also. The story was rather incomplete about him. Robey? Was that the name?
@marinm
Do you think they are criminally nuts or just criminals?
I would guess some sort of behavioral disorder. That doesn’t help as far as legal insanity goes.
I fear this isn’t all that abnormal in the world of child abusers.
Just criminals.
I think in cases like this, where we see the worst side of man, we need to temper our collective desire for “vengence” with an even greater desire for lawful justice. Easy in theory. Difficult in practice. I was reading the story about the 11 year-old Califronia girl who was gang-raped by an adult and several juveniles, all members of a gang. As reported, the girl was lured away from a shopping center by “an older girl”, who led her into a public bathroom in a park, where she was set-upon by these criminals. As a father, a part of me wants to see vengence delivered most swiftly…a “Father’s Justice” if you will. But, the rationale part of me says we can’t survive as a society, if we all scream for frontier justice.
In the case of these “parents”, there is obviously some mental or personality issues here. I say this because the natural inclination of a normal adult is to protect and care for children. Therefore, these adults are exhibiting abnormal behavior. When abnormal behavior crosses a codified societal norm (a law), the criminal justice system is used. We have a set of acceptable punishments beased on the severity of the crime: fines, probation, house-arrest, jail-time, death-penalty. Forced sterilization is not on the list, even though the parent in me may wish it was.
@Steve
And once we get past our initial outrage, what is in place to protect not only the children this woman has but also the children she MIGHT have?
I do think that forced permanent surgical sterilization is more control than I might want to give any government. However, I am not so sure that courted ordered implantation of 5 year norplant is all that strident of a response.
What is done to rapists? Isn’t there some chemical some of them must take?
@ Moon:
“What is done to rapists? Isn’t there some chemical some of them must take?”
Some states have experimented with voluntary surgical or chemical castration as a condition of parole, for certain sex-offenders. If this woman were to agree to a similar approach a part of a plea deal, then that is between the prosecutor and she. However, I don’t think the criminal justice system should be issuing forced sterilization as a punishment. That puts society on a slippery-slope. Where would the line be drawn? If a woman is a habitual drug offender, should we sterilize her so any children she might have would not be born drug-addicted?
@Steve,
If you live long enough, most of life becomes a slippery slope. The morality of an issue shifts. It is my personal belief that we have gone too far with allowing the mentally afflicted to determine whether they take meds, the rapists to decline chemical castration and the drug users and child abusers to continue to have children.
My world says that these people are not emotionally capable of basing decisions on rational decision-making.
None of these conditions are permanent. Of course, we still live in a society that accepts the death penalty. It doesn’t get any more permanent than death.
@Steve–somehow I feel we have swapped hats or something. Bizarro universe.
Can the courts order a heroin addict to take methadone?
My heart still aches for Lexie Glover.
@Moon,
When I read stories like this, like Lacey Peterson, Baby Grace, the 11 year old rape victim, etc., I am no different most. I am stunned by how much real evil there is in the world, but then I remember that evil has always existed. We are just much more informed about individual events these days. Still, when I hear a story like this, I want the “Dirty Harry” version of justice done to the perps, especially if the victims are children. This goes double if the perps are parents or guardians of the victims. I can tell you, if someone hurt one of my ladies…. In as much as I wish the Justice system was less inclined to give 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. chances, forced sterilization for child abuser/neglecters is not a road I want us to go down.
@Steve, even if the sterilization is not permanent? You are indeed kind. I see no other way to stop an habitual offender. Norplant is simply prevents pregnancy long-term. I believe it is for 5 years. This woman can and will be incarcerated if found guilty. She will not get life in prison. She will be released. How do you protect children she might have from abuse?
My plan would be norplant in exchange for the ability to walk the streets. No norplant? Back to prison this woman goes. You just don’t do that any anyone or anything. Not to dogs, cats, horses, but mostly, you don’t drywall in children.
I actually don’t care what they were passed out from. If they needed a drink or drug that badly, call a sitter, a grandparent or drop them off at the neighors.
Updates on N&M website indicate that the “parents” were passed out in another room, under the influence of narcotics.
Although the incidence of child abuse and neglect has been decreasing in recent years, more than 1.25 million, or 1 in every 58 children in the United States, were abused in 2006.
More than half (61 percent) of the children (771,700 children) were victims of neglect, meaning a parent or guardian failed to provide for the child’s basic needs. Forms of neglect include educational neglect (360,500 children), physical neglect (295,300 children), and emotional neglect (193,400).
Hard to believe that the ‘natural instinct of a normal adult is to care for a child’. We want to believe that but it’s not true. These statistics tell us there are a lot of abnormal adults out there. This is purely a case of self-absorbed druggies…..I don’t care why they’re addicted. I’m with Pinko, my attitude about the death penalty has changed toward child abusers and pedophiles. Where are the other family members of these people? Why does Social Services think keeping families together is a good idea? And thank goodness PWC hired people in Child Protective Services after they realized they hadn’t hired any since the late 80’s or early 90’s – too bad they just hired them at low bid. This is happening all over the country-not enough caseworkers…. now the schools are the new caseworkers for Child Protective Services.
This is one area where reacting is just too late. But we’ll toss these three away, make some noise and then hope the BoS doesn’t raise our taxes.
When you’re the cheapest place to live in the region (average tax bill is $1,300 less than others in the region) you get cheap people and criminals that can live and work here – who mentioned a while ago that the $300k+ homes paid there share of taxes without services???
I’m ticked.
As you should be, Juturna. Thanks for pointing out needs to be said. Cheap ain’t always best.
And did I mention that one statistic that used to be kept by the state was “number of times a child was abused by the SAME adult.” Guess that made people feel better as abuse was a lot lower with that caclulation and tax dollars not needed……. We all know that being beaten by different people doesn’t hurt as much as being beaten by the same person…..especially when your four – they don’t know the difference.
And we need to point out that most cases of child abuse don’t make the newspapers.
Ohhhh…I was thinking that they were actually employed and felt they had no other option than to corral the kids in a shi*hole while they were gone to avoid paying for child care. Silly me. No, they were passed out in a drug induced stupor. I hope there is a hell and they rot there. I mean seriously? The kids were naked with crap thrown against the walls and windows? They didn’t even diaper the kids? No money for diapers, but enough for the drugs I take it? How about the cigs… I bet they have money for those, too. Bastards.
I don’t agree with the state deciding who can and who can’t have children. I do agree with the state deciding who can and cannot keep their children.
Making more kids is sometimes easy. What is to protect those who are not yet on this earth? I would prefer to keep habitual offenders from having more kids to abuse.
If we allow the state to decide who gets to live and who gets to die, then pulling out a few people lacking any maternal instincts at all, the abusers, to be forced to wear a few rods in their arm, is nothing, IMHO.
yes, the state can take away the kids – but that is an area that some want to defund. After the agency is no longer there, who cares for the kids.
Kids have no value in this country. Neither do most adults. The only thing valued in this country is money – making it and keeping it. That’s how a persons value is calculated.
Yeah, the routine ones aren’t sensational enough.
I ditto TWINAD’s last word in that 21:18 post.
Glad you feel that way. Guess where we landed? I’m only 555′ from the proposed line of the 50th and 13th.
Now, who in the 13th is buying us drinks to welcome us to our new district? 👿
I am eating my words. gobble gobble. No one is buying us drinks. We can drown in them.
Jackson’s loss is Sideshow’s gain. Jackson should be sending him a condolence card.
“Hard to believe that the ‘natural instinct of a normal adult is to care for a child’. We want to believe that but it’s not true.”
Juturna,
And I would argue that it is, in fact the natural instinct of a normal adult to care for children. There are what, close to 300 million people in the US, and close to 6 billion on the planet? I will agree that each child wrapped in the statistics you quote is indeed a tragedy, Child Abuse and Neglect is not the norm. Also, if it wasn’t the natural instinct of adults to provide for and care for children, we wouldn’t have laws that make abuse and neglect a crime. We wouldn’t have collective shock and disgust whenever an aggregious case of abuse and neglect is discovered. We wouldn’t have people making the argument that abusers should have their ability to conceive children severed.
I don’t think we disagree that we must do everything feasible to protect children. I think our disagreement centers on what is feasible for a civil society to do.
@Moon-howler
Moon,
If the woman (we are focusing on women here) agrees to this as one of the many conditions of parole, or closely supervised probation, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it. This would represent an agreement between the individual and the state. Where I have and issue is if the state imposed this as part of a sentence.
Look, I am a father. Any case where a child is the victim challenges the very bounds of compassion that I may have for the perpetrator, especially when the perpetrator is a parent or guardian. Even more so when it’s the mother. Someone once said “Mothers are the manifistation of God to children, before they can understand who God is.” There is a lot of truth in that statement.
In the case we are discussing, I hope the the justice system deals harshly with both parents. They need to be made to pay for their crimes. I also hope that during a lengthy incarceration and probation, they receive help for their substance abuse problems. I hope these children are placed in loving home, either as foster children, or as permanent adoptions.
Steve, I am thinking about norplant after she gets out of jail. Our penal system punishes and does not reabilitate so I am all about prevention here.
My biggest question here has moved over into the realm of what is motivating my strong feelings here. Both the conservatives and liberals and centrists disagree with me. Does that mean you all have found common ground?
As a strongly pro-choice woman, I feel this woman has lost her ‘right to choose.’ She hasn’t just lost her rights, she squandered them. Furthermore, I would deal with her reproductively rather than him. Men can’t have babies. Women can. Maybe its an age thing.
Drowning is definately what came to my mind too.
Condolence card.-good one. I sure don’t see my neighbors voting Del Bob. Perhaps, this is the way the “Delgate for Life” will be ousted. Ahh, one can only dream. 😉
Mr. Howler just put this into male terms. He said its the same reason Michael Vick isn’t allowed to have a dog. He lost his rights to dog ownership.
He said this woman shouldn’t be allowed to bring anything else into this world to torture it to death.
Go Mr. Howler! If we can have protections for animals, don’t people believe we should at least afford children the same rights?????!!!
Norplant is not permanent, I would never condone permanant sterilization, too eugenics like.
Just because you have a vagina does not mean you are a qualifed mom. Do you I believe that woman innately have nurturing qualities, yes, but there is no guarantee.
Futhermore, when convicted of a DWI, anibuse is often required as a condition of probation. If you drink while taking anibuse, you will get violently ill.
Elena,
As I said before, I have no issue with non-permanent means, if offerred as a condition of release, and agreed to by the woman convicted. I do have a problem with the power of the state being applied to force this type of thing.
Comparisons to Michael Vick or to a DUI convict fail in that no one has an inherent right to own an animal, or to drive a car. You can make it a crime for them to ever own another animal, or operate a vehicle, simply by the judge ordering it so. However, I shudder at the potential abuses of judicial power, should the state start mandating who can and cannot procreate, based on a set of legal standards. Say someone is a fit parent, but dependent on public assistance for much of the support of the child. Do we say, “you can receive a check and foodstamps, and live in subsidized housing, but you have to agree to be chemically sterilized for the period you are on public assistance…”? Once we st
@Steve,
It isn’t criminal to be on public assistance. When you are a convicted felon, we can take away your gun toting priviledges, your voting rights, and personal freedom and even your life, if certain criteria are met. Why not your right to reproduce?
I still believe court ordered norplant is totally reasonable if a person is a convicted felon.
I can think of many people I would like to deny that right to if I were king for a little while….so I do see the slippery slope.
I would also order up chemical castration for convicted rapists if DNA verification were present….after release. And if they whined I would remind them that they were lucky they had not been excuted.
Once we start down this path, there will always be those seeking to “push the envelope”. Can we “unring the bell”?
It’s stories like this that test my convictions, and my compassion for my fellow man. When asked for examples of evil, I cannot think of anything worse than a mother or father who deliberately places their child in danger. I think this woman, if convicted, should get a 50 year sentence. But I don’t want the state to forcibly sterilize her.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/29/police-michigan-mom-offered-4-year-old-daughter-sex/
well..if we had sterilization laws maybe we would have this blog? I mean some of the people that post here wouldnt be here! that would be interesting.
before you start talking about sterilization, maybe you should start talking about sterilizing illegal immigrants. THAT would be an interesting.
How about the mentally ill? If someone fails to take their meds, can we chemically sterilize them?
Again, voluntarily as a condition of release, I have no issue. State directed and mandated, I have an issue. I would suspect the ACLU would be on my side here (and I would be scratching my head wondering how THAT happened). I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, and commend ourselves for not being disagreeable.
whomever you are elhotito, you are a moron. The topic is specifically about the multiple convictions of child abuse. Now, the question is, if one does not want to go down that slippery slope, of which I can understand, how does the state ensure the safety of children?
Steve,
I do understand your point, however, the question of sterilizing the mentally ill has been addressed, it is illegal. Having said that though, if someone, in custody for a crime, is deemed mentally incompentent, the “state” has the right to force medication on the defendant. Is this any different? If one is convicted, on multiple occasions of child abuse, until it is deemed they are ready to parent a child and NOT abuse them, can they be required to take birth control? I would say yes, this is not a permanent condition and can be reveresed, easily I might add. The mentally ill can not be required to take medication, however, once they are in the legal system, that freedom no longer holds true. The trigger is being in the legal system for an felony conviction of child abuse with specific standards being met.
I don’t suggest this is an easy answer, and I might be disuaded from this position, but first I would have to understand how this is different from other circumstances where the court can require medication. Maybe we do make it conditional upon release, however, the supreme court has ruled that a rapist opting for surgical castration is cruel and unusual punishment, even though he wanted to have it done.
@Elena
That was just Josh L. Did I not say I was going to publish his IP address if he posted here again?
I believe you did M-H.
@Steve – I see too much. 🙁