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northernwalkerhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html?wpisrc=newsletter&sid=ST2009030602446 Requires free registration.
This article showed up in the Washington Post a couple of months ago. I've been thinking about it ever since. It's about about people who had lost children to hyperthermia- that is, the children had been left unattended in cars and had died from the heat. They discuss the prosecution of those parents, and whether it's justified.
I have to say no. It's an accident. A hideous, horrible accident. I say this as a person who takes medication to stay alive. I still leave the house in the morning having forgotten to use my inhaler. It's sitting right next to my bag in the middle of my bed, and I still miss it occasionally. These people are going on autopilot and just don't notice something sitting quietly in the back seat. They aren't drunk, or on drugs. They forgot. They will have to live with that for the rest of their lives. What can you possibly do to punish them more?
With Harrison, it was Ray Morrogh, the Fairfax commonwealth's attorney. In an interview a few days after he brought the charge of involuntary manslaughter, Morrogh explained why.
"There is a lot to be said for reaffirming people's obligations to protect their children," he said. "When you have children, you have responsibilities. I am very strong in the defense of children's safety."
Morrogh has two kids himself, ages 12 and 14. He was asked if he could imagine this ever having happened to him. The question seemed to take him aback. He went on to another subject, and then, 10 minutes later, made up his mind:
"I have to say no, it couldn't have happened to me. I am a watchful father."
This was telling, I think. It's said by the prosecutor who brought charges against one such parent.I don't think this can be as simple as he wants to make it. He wants to believe that he could never do it. That he would never make that mistake.
"Memory is a machine," he says, "and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you're capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child."
This was said by an expert on human memory (who very nearly experienced this himself when he forgot his infant granddaughter was asleep in the back seat of the car. Luckily his wife was there and did remember her.)
So, what does everyone else think? Virtual kleenex is right here.
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Date: 2009-05-19 05:39 pm (UTC)My wife and I were talking yesterday about how every now and then someone locks a baby in a car with the windows rolled up and the baby dies from the heat. If you were a father who did that, she said, how would you go on living with yourself? And I said, grimly, only half-joking, that you'd pretty much have to kill yourself.
Yeah, if it were me you'd be sticking me in a lockdown facility. For years.