I saw this story on Mojo's newswire and I had to post it here and vent.
This Buckhead newborn didn't stand a chance.
By the time he saw a doctor, the 6-week-old, born at home, was dead. Fed a diet consisting largely of soy milk and apple juice by his vegan parents, the baby boy weighed just 3 1/2 pounds.
Fulton prosecutors say it's a chilling case of murder by starvation, a painful and prolonged death. Attorneys representing parents Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle. Vegans typically live free of animal products.
"They're not vegans, they're baby killers," Fulton prosecutor Mike Carlson told the jury Tuesday during his closing arguments."Think about how long they had to listen to his screams and hollers."
Thomas hung his head and appeared to nearly collapse on the defense table during
closing arguments, while Sanders sat next to him listening intently. The couple's attorneys claim the parents didn't realize their baby, named Crown, was in danger until minutes before he died.Jurors began deliberations Tuesday. Prosecutors urged jurors to convict the parents of murder, which carries an automatic life sentence in prison. Defense lawyers told jurors the death is at most a case of involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct that results in an unintentional death, punishable by up to one year in jail.
I understand being vegan, but I thought part of the point was not taking from animals "without permission." You would think that it would be okay to nurse because the mother is freely giving the milk. I would even go so far as to say that vegans might be okay with drinking human milk since it wasn't acquired through exploitation of the giver. Failing all that, you would think that if they are choosing to live a strict vegan lifestyle and raise their child in that lifestyle, then they would do a little research on how to do it safely. Plus you would think they would have thought something was wrong when their baby weighed less than half the average BIRTH weight. I don't have any kids but this just tears at me. It really makes one want to force all would be parents into to parenting classes with some sort of licensing exam at the end of it.
4 comments:
One would hope they would have taken the child to a doctor I don't know in the 6 weeks just to make sure he was okay for normal health reasons.
If they are that nutty, you can't assume they like seeing doctors. Even if it's for their childs benefit.
Six weeks is the average check-up time.
The cheese thinks the vegan thing is being overblown. Many baby formulas are made with soy protein.
These two seem to have been utterly clueless, or in no way interested in actually learning anything about children at all.
So maybe that's point in favor of Jezmon's "mandatory parenting class" idea. But something about that fundamentally bothers the cheese. If two people who are expecting a child can be bothered to do the work on their own, then no amount of classes would likely have helped them anyway.
The 6 week first check may be the norm for people who deliver in a actual hospital but these two didn't even do that. It makes a certain amount of sense to see a doctor before the 6 week mark for a normal check up in this case. Theres a difference between soy milk, and soy baby food. Milk vs soy.
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