I think it’s completely fair to speculate or guess and be honest about it. It seems as though Inbred Mm domesticus has taken the mantle of apologist for this woman.
My primary ‘Why?’ is logic based on my knowledge of the drug. A very nice example of treating strychnine poisoning and strychnine’s metabolism is provided here: it’s only 2 pages and an easy read. My secondary ‘Why?’ is provided by you:
On the page you linked to and the page prior, the authors state there is a neonatal and adult form of the glycine receptor. The neonatal form has a low affinity (doesn’t bind well to and requires a higher concentration of strychnine to be anatagonized) for strychnine and they even cite an example where strychnine had no effect on neonatal mice (last full paragraph on the page).
That said, their citations primarily concern rodents and there is not a one-to-one relationship between stages in human and rodent gestation.
That is neurulation. That’s equivalent to the beginning of nervous system development, while the infant was in the last stages of nervous system development.
I agree. I also think it had a series of them at birth due to a birth defect, but I see no reason to believe that birth defect was the result of strychnine.
I have the background to be making educated guesses and I really don’t see it. Hopefully the links I provided and those provided by CitizenPained make my hesitation to accept the prosecution’s hypothesis clearer.
I am not an apologist I think, I see the how the link between the strychnine poisoning and the newborn’s seizures feel like they should logically be there, but it wasn’t there for me and the reasons include:
no drug around by the time the baby was born
a really effective dose probably would have killed the infant perinatally
the right glycine receptor was probably not expressed yet (not 100% on it)
Thanks for the info. Like I said, I’m sure we’ll all find out. If the strychnine did cause neonatal seizures, is it possible that those seizures resulted in brain damage? I guess what I’m wondering is
if the strychnine (and its counter treatments) affected the fetus negatively
isn’t it possible that the effects were permanent? or at least ‘long term’?
because the fetus would have suffered neural damage (lack of oxygen, the strychnine itself, and 10823290 things I don’t know for lack of being an MD)
While I don’t think the poor woman should be charged for murder, I do agree with a criminal charge of some kind, be it child endangerment or abuse. Unfortunately (?) the child was born, lived, and (presumably) suffered.
Wait – if the mother had been given a ton of neuroleptics, is it possible the infant was in withdrawal? From what I remember, nearly every major anti convulsant on the market was known to cause risks to the fetus.
So if the strychnine didn’t affect the fetus, the treatment may have. Things like Diazepam, Tegretol, etc, all cross the placenta. I usually hear about facial deformities and such, but who knows. If the infant was in withdrawal or suffered CNS damage, it is not surprising it had seizures.
First of all, do we know it was strychnine? When I hear “rat poison”, I think of anticoagulants (a massive overdose of coumadin), which does cross the placental barrier and could easily have caused bleeding in the brain of the fetus. Increased intercranial pressure from the bleeding or scarring from the healing of the bleed in the brain could absolutely cause seizures at a later date.
But let’s go with strychnine. Say it began to paralyze the mother’s diaphragm before she got treated. She’s now short of breath and short of oxygen. The first place a pregnant woman’s body vasoconstricts, to shunt blood and oxygen to her brain and heart, is the umbilical artery. That means the fetus is deprived of oxygen in *her *brain. A history of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) in the brain can also cause seizures at a later date. And it need not cross the placental barrier to do so (although I believe it does cross, regardless.)
It’s absolutely plausible that “rat poison” could later cause fatal seizures in the fetus.
Morally: I think she was not thinking rationally <lines up to kick the boyfriend in the nards> and the question becomes one of intent. Did she try to kill herself or herself and the baby? Or as someone pointed out, maybe she was trying to abort (she was from China. Does anyone know the traditional way to abort a fetus in China?). Without more info, I’m inclined to give her a pass.
Legally: IANAL but unless there is a law against third trimester attempted abortions in Indiana, I don’t think she can be prosecuted for what she did to the baby before she was born. It is funadamental to Roe v. Wade that a fetus does not have rights under the 14th Amendment until it is born. We can certainly argue if this also means that a person that causes a woman to have a miscarriage can legally be held accountable for causing the fetus’ death (murder or manslaughter). But in this case, I think the state cannot hold her for the death. To be honest, as long as abortions by lethally injecting the fetus with saline are legal (are they in Indiana?) then this cannot be murder.
Soapbox: The laws in this country, both Federally and at a state level are too contradictory to ever answer a question like this. Is the fetus a human? If a woman is walking into Planned Parenthood? No. If some nutjob hits her in the womb with a baseball bat while she walks into Planned Parenthood? Yes. On Day 90? No. On Day 91? Maybe. On Day 181? Probably or possibly or maybe or no. When Mom is in an HOV lane? According to urban legend (so may be true or not)? Yes. Before 2003, you could even yank the fetus’ head out into world before killing it (and I am pro-choice).
Can we at least get some sembalance of consistancy.
Retribution for or from whom ? The boyfriend clearly didn’t give a shit about the baby. There’s no grieving widow or pale faced orphan to avenge here. Nobody’s going to get closure or a misplaced sense of justice from killing her or sending her to the pokey.
Deterrence ? She tried to* kill herself*. It’s not like further consequences were on her mind. Had a police officer-like angel whispered in her ear (or that of any like-minded woman) “don’t do this, you’ll go to jail !” at the time it wouldn’t have changed her disposition, would it ? I won’t even touch the irony of getting the death penalty for an attempted suicide - too easy.
Incapacitation ? The baby’s dead. That’s done. She’s not going to feed other pregnant women rat poison, or get pregnant again just so she can drop more rat poison for kicks, I don’t think.
Rehabilitation ? From what, her long career in baby-killing ? Yeah, a couple years amongst actual crooks and killers is a great idea for that. I’m sure she’ll come out much better adjusted and won’t try to kill herself so much after a decade of forced cohabitation with Large Marge.
It’s a positively horrible story, and I really don’t feel nor think anything can be done to make it less so, but especially not by throwing the book at her. Get her a shrink or twelve, possibly a prolonged stay in a nice [del]laughing academy[/del]mental institution until she’s learned to process the pain and move on (not that she really ever will), and that’s that.
Scott Peterson immediately comes to mind here. He was convicted of TWO counts of murder because his wife was pregnant.
I’m wondering how laws work in jurisdictions that prohibit late term abortions and the woman has one anyways. Is it a murder charge or an “illegal abortion at too late of a late term” charge? I think that should guide this prosecution.
In other words, what if this woman said, “Fuck the law, I want an abortion.” She then finds a doctor who performs it for her. What would she and the doctor be charged with?
Is this another trick question? Retribution for killing a child. It doesn’t matter if it’s her child, she still doesn’t get to murder it. We don’t let single mothers kill their children.
Ummm, deterence is both general and specific. In this case, charging her will likely deter her from getting pregnant and murdering that child. It may also deter other mothers by convincing them to get help before they kill their child.
She may well get pregnant again.
She can get help.
If she’s mentally ill, by all means incapacitate her and get her the help she needs to be rehabilitated.
Prosecutors also have discretion not to pursue cases. In this case, there is no serious risk of recidivism, and going to trial is just piling on a woman who has suffered two enormous losses in a year. Is this the best use of the court’s time? Or is it an exercise in moralistically whipping a person of “targetable” social standing?
No, its the life of the mother not some melancholy.
By that sort of logic you can say all murderers are mentally ill because it is truly unusual that anyone should take another human life for little or no reason and thus they should not be punished.
Perhaps she was willing to inflict pain on others even at the expense of herself.
Perhaps. If so, I could see charging her with something like “Attempting to perform a medical procedure without a medical license.” That is, an abortion. DIY abortions *should *be discouraged; they’re not safe.
Her intent would be key, of course. Did she try to kill herself, or did she try to kill her fetus? The first is suicide, the second is abortion. Neither one is attempting to kill a legal (or spiritual, IMHO, but of course we can go many rounds on that debate) person other than herself. She didn’t attempt or succeed at killing the (legal, spiritual, unarguable) person lying in the NICU after her birth.
That’s what RvW found, ultimately - that legally, a fetus isn’t a person. The laws making the killing of a fetus a murder violate that, IMHO. If those were overturned as they should be, there’d be no precedent for this case. That’s why they’re a bad idea.
I can’t see any usefulness in charging her with murder. Hell, around here anyone who with “suicidal ideations” is presumed to be mentally ill. I’d say she went a step or two beyond ideations.