November 08, 2009
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Caylee Anthony and inconsistency
Toddler’s story makes me think of millions of other missing children
Toddler’s story makes me think of millions of other missing children
When I Google “Caylee Anthony,” almost 250,000 results come up.
The first is a story about the ongoing search in a wooded area where a child’s skull was found last week. Thousands of related articles are just a click away: Ones speculating whether the remains found are those of the missing toddler, ones detailing the investigation that began after she was reported missing last summer, ones about the murder charge dealt to her mother in October.
Beneath the news articles is a link to www.helpfindcaylee.com, which opens to a page that gives a description of Caylee: She is 3. She has shoulder-length, light brown hair and dark hazel eyes and a birth mark on her left shoulder.
Caylee has her own Wikipedia page. She has more than 50 YouTube videos. She has the attention of the entire nation – because it is, after all, a horrible thing when a child disappears and evidence indicates she might not be found alive.
But as much as her case warrants a reaction like this, it also illuminates what seems to me a gigantic disparity.
There are, after all, a million Caylees every year – in the United States alone – who no one searches for. No one writes news stories or creates Web sites about them. No one cries murder or puts their mothers in prison. I know the abortion debate sounds a lot like a broken record at this point, but as much as I’ve read and written about it – as much as I’ve talked to people on both sides – what never fails to get to me is this inconsistency.
The reason I see it as an inconsistency, of course, is that I don’t see the differences between a child who has been born and one who hasn’t as significant enough to warrant valuing the life of one but not the other. They’ve both had their own DNA – unique genetic material proving they’re not just appendages of their mothers – from the moment of conception. Maybe this is why, I’ve found, people find it pretty impossible to determine exactly when a human being begins, if not at conception – which in turn causes abortion supporters to avoid the question by making “reproductive freedom” the core issue, even though logically, any freedom that allows for taking an innocent human life has gone too far.
We can all see this clearly in Caylee’s case. I wonder, though, how many see that her story happens by the thousands every day.
JOB SEARCH
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How did this article see the light of day? This has got to be one of the most pointless articles I've ever read. This is pathetic even by this newspapers standards. I bet if the "journalist" had a pro life viewpoint it never would have been published.
I agree! This is the most ridiculous article I've seen on the story so far. It is absurd to suggest that abortion is the same thing as duct taping a child's mouth, killing it (God knows how) and dumping it's body in the woods. I do agree that there are many more children that are missing that don't get this much news attention.
I think the basic point is about a mother deciding to terminate her child. the only differece to me is in the timing.
Keep up the good work Erin.
the timing? Last time I checked it wasn't a crime to have an abortion. Murder is a crime no matter the age of the victim. The correlation between the two is non existent. One is a crime one is not. Opinion is not fact.
"Murder is a crime NO MATTER THE AGE of the victim" you said it yourself. Maybe it's legal to have an abortion, but it is STILL a crime. The woman who gets an abortion (and yes, this is my personal opinion) is terminating the life of an innocent child. I don't believe it's her decision, because this unborn child is not part of her body, is INSIDE of it. There’s nothing the baby can do to defend him/herself, he/she did not even wanted to be there in the first place! She put him/her there, by having sex. And next, she gets rid of him/her? It's not her right, since nobody has any rights over someone else's life. If the woman doesn't want to get pregnant, then use birth control! there's NO excuse to murder a baby, is alive the moment is conceived, and that's final.
Posted by RedSoxNation on December 17, 2008 at 2:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
the timing? Last time I checked it wasn't a crime to have an abortion. Murder is a crime no matter the age of the victim. The correlation between the two is non existent. One is a crime one is not. Opinion is not fact.
________
Who said anything about legal crime? I believe that Mr_America was referring to moral crime. To some, murder is murder, whether it is by forced dehydration of an invalid, puncturing the skull of an innocent baby with a pair of scissors or pickling them in the womb or duct taping a child's mouth shut and overdosing them on chloroform. The end result is the same: It stops a beating heart. That, IS a fact, not an opinion.
human life should be valued at all stages of development. it is a tragedy that so many women feel that their best option is to throw away a human life.
that being said, once the courts granted and labeled abortion as a "right" -- i cannot support it being reversed. what other rights could then be taken away? (i can support its restriction, just not the total banning)
instead, i think babies will be saved one instance at a time -- by everyday citizens acting out of love and respect for their neighbors. this is a war that cannot and should not be won in courts. it should be won in the individual choices and hearts of people.
if you truly care about the life of a baby, you should also truly care about the life (not just heartbeat, but actual quality of life) of the baby's mother. reach out and do something other than hold a sign and yell. have some compassion, try to understand.
ALL human life is precious.
i want to add that this seems more like it belongs on a personal blog -- not the newspaper's site...
This isn't some kidnapping in a mall, park or playground (although that is horrific). This is a sociopathic mother(a pathological liar and alleged murderer of her OWN daughter) and a nutty pair of grandparents-- surrounding a precious child who hardly stood a chance with these people! That is why this case stands out. If you have truly looked into this case (especially via Nancy Grace on YouTube) you will see why it has received more coverage than the usual tragic missing child scenario. Indeed all children are precious and it is devastating should they go missing--no one is belittling that fact. It is this case as a whole, that is disturbing and has grabbed headlines.
I think any pro-life person would see the coloration in this article about Caylee and the right to life. Very good way of getting your point across.
To Becky:
You said:"I don't believe it's her decision, because this unborn child is not part of her body, is INSIDE of it"
I beg to differ. The umbilical cord connects mother and baby and is therefore very much a part of mom's body.
Becky and Amy_J-What might be morally wrong for one might be not be for another. Some people find it morally wrong to eat pig and cow, doesn't mean it is a "moral crime". Your feelings on abortion do not change the fact that it is a legal practice. That is a fact.
RedSoxNation: You're right. Those are my feelings. The ones that do not change the fact that it is a legal practice and that makes me sad. But, as well as I think that no live should be terminated, I also believe that it's not up to me to judge other people's decisions. The debate around abortion has been going on for so many years, and we haven't reach an agreement, so I suppose we won't. So, I can't change the minds of those who do get abortions and they can't change mine. It is a moral decision. And it is a human life. I don't see it as the same thing as eating meat, but you're also right about that, since you're talking about other cultures in which eating it is just as bad for them as abortion is to me.
Anyway, I guess all I can do is just pray for more people to keep their child (or give them up for adoption, if the case is that they won't be able to take care of them), and less and less people taking the course of abortion.
Sorry that I wrote so much... I got carried away.
And... to jdelponte: the cord connects them, as you very well said. But It doesn't make them the same person, it doesn't make the baby part of mom's body like an arm or, I don't know, the liver. The baby depends on the mother for food and nutrients, that's why they're connected, but that's exactly the key word "connected", because even as they share that cord, they have different DNA's.
I stand with the first poster.....poor, poor journalism. This should never has received ink to be printed/posted.
Well for poor journalism it sure got people talking. I for one have followed the Caylee Anthony case from the beginning on Nancy Grace, and it has been stated several times that when Caycie found out she was pregnant she talked about abortion and even giving the child to a friend of hers to adopt but the grandmother Cyndee put the kabosh to that. So in effect, if grandma would have stayed out of it, let her give the child up for adoption, she would probably still be alive. The whole family appears to be one huge disfunctional mess that let this little girl down.