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Can someone explain to me what is PPD and why do some women get it? It seems to run counter to the most basic instinct we have, which is survival of the species. Is this some kind of First World problem? Maybe women in more primitive societies work so hard they don't have time to notice a hormonal imbalance.
As for the sentence... smack my head. She should not be allowed back into society after what she's done. Can you imagine her living next door to your children?
Leniency due to mental illness is a crock. If anything, a proper diagnosis should serve as proof of why someone is better off OUT of public. I have seen PPD and I know it's very real, but if you kill your children as a result, you should absolutely go to jail. For a long time.
Meh...I don't buy that. There are plenty of people that are afflicted that don't plan and execute a brutal murder of their children. This lady should have two life sentences. The fact she'll probably be out in 10 years is a joke.
100% in agreement! Again, if a man had done this it wouldn't matter WHAT kind of mental illness he may have had (not that he'd get anymore sympathy anyway) people would be asking for blood.
What's really sad is at the very least this woman isn't sterilized, since she's obviously incapable of having children without wanting to kill them. Serial rapists/killers are without a doubt "mentally ill" as well, so why do they not get any sympathy? Obviously, if being "mentally ill" should be an excuse to excuse or mitigate your actions when surely they should be given as much sympathy as this woman.
Men commenting on women's postpartum issues is really kind of pointless. And I don't mean that in an insulting way. It's just the truth. There's simply no way that you'll ever experience it, so you can't know what it is like to go through it. It's not a man vs woman issue. It's a woman's issue. Postpartum issues affect women. People can disagree all they like, but scientifically, postpartum depression and psychosis are real afflictions. It would be like me trying to say I know what it's like to have erectile dysfunction and how it would affect my life. I can imagine it, but I can't actually know anything about the reality of it because I'm a woman and do not have a penis. I can believe 100% that I know what it would be like. But that doesn't mean that I actually do.
I agree that what this woman did was horrific. It's the worst thing a person could do to innocent children. But I am also saying that there's a very real possibility that she truly didn't know what she was doing. People ask why she didn't give the children to someone who could care for them. The short answer is that it would be a sane and rational thing to do. She was NOT sane and rational due to postpartum psychosis.
The reason some women get postpartum depression and some don't is because every pregnancy is different. We have different hormone levels, different support systems, and different ways of coping with depression and anxiety. No two pregnancies will be the same.
He's following the lead of the Andrea Yates case.
Yes, I think she got off easy. I don't believe in the death penalty, but I sure would have given her more time for taking two children's lives.
Few "believe in the death penalty" when it's a woman committing the crime.
You know, it certainly is very convenient that whenever a woman does something heinous and cruel/evil they ALWAYS have some kind of mental excuse, and gain sympathy. A woman can never just be bad or evil they always have to have some other "factor" for why they did what they did and need help not punishment. Funny how men don't get the same privilege of blaming their evil acts on "mental illness" "depression" etc. etc.
People like Hitler, Stalin, Mao...They were all just suffering from some mental illness and we should all understand and cut them some slack.
And don't forget Elizabeth Báthory, she is responsible for killing hundreds of young women but...she was most certainly depressed for some reason so she doesn't deserve the scorn she gets from people.
Must be quite nice being a woman, do something real evil that would get a man 25 years to life if not executed, cry a bunch and say you are just really depressed and you are vindicated from responsibility!
In the justice system, this is clandestinely known as the "P:u$$y Pass." A man and a woman can be arrested and tried for the same crime, he goes to prison, she gets probation. Women are still not judged capable of adult responsibility.
One reason not to be lenient is because of the risk that she might have actually had other motives than just the depression. Nobody can prove it, but they can prove she murdered the children. That should be what counts. Taking abstract motives into account is dangerously close to giving judges extreme power over people with no way to prove whether the judge is doing what's right or acting as a tyrant. It's basically letting the judge make the decision based mainly on the whims of the judge, instead of on the law. It gives the judge too much power. Power corrupts.
If the woman had been a different race, or spoke with a different voice, or had a different face, or had relatives who insulted the judge in the past, would she have gone to prison for life? This kind of issue is what comes up when we have "a government of men, not of laws."
Besides that, if PP depression can make her a murderer this time, what's to keep it from making her a murderer in the future? And what if she murders other people's children the next time?
She killed two children and will do less time in prison than a person caught selling a few grams of weed. Our criminal justice system is broken and can no longer be trusted.
The only thing that trust has to do with any of this is that the right person was tried and that their rights as an accused person were honored. Seem slike the the go to argument these days is that if some part of the government acts in away way we don't like then we declare the institution as being untrustworthy, the actual law be damned.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmyp25
A former teacher who laced her two young children's grape juice with windshield wiper fluid, then drowned them in a bathtub promised on Tuesday to raise awareness of postpartum depression before a judge sentenced her to eight years in prison.
Dressed in an all-white suit, her hands cuffed behind her back, Lisette Bamenga spoke quietly to Judge Martin Marcus, who found her guilty in April of manslaughter in the July 2012 deaths of 4-month-old Violet and 4-year-old Trevor. She had been charged with murder, but her attorney argued she suffered from crippling undiagnosed postpartum psychosis. The judge agreed she suffered from an emotional disturbance severe enough to knock down the charges.
From where I sit, anyone sick enough to kill their own children, let alone in a horribly graphic way with much physical effort required, is not able to be rehabilitated. In a death penalty state, I'd opt for the death penalty in any case like this. At the very least, this should be 25 to Life.
No way in hell, justice is served here. I agree with others, if a dude did this, definitely would be a life sentence at the very least.
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Few "believe in the death penalty" when it's a woman committing the crime.
