A Gruesome Find – Frozen Infants
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As I read the story about a mother who apparently froze three of her babies, three things came immediately to my mind. One is a verse from the Bible in Isaiah, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she borne?” And one I used to hear my mother say ever so often, “Can a mother’s tender heart turn against the child she had borne?” This also caused me to reflect on the recent story out of Austria of the father who imprisoned his own daughter for 24 years and had children with her. I thought of him because not only did he do such a heinous thing to his own child, but he also burned one of her babies when the child died.
This particular case happened in Germany, when a hunt in the freezer for frozen pizza led to the gruesome discovery. Instead of pizza, they found the frozen bodies of three babies. The two grown children, ages 18 and 24 confronted their parents. The three adult children then did the right thing and reported what they found to the police.
The 44-year old mother has been arrested on the suspicion that she may have killed the babies after they were born. Authorities believe that the infants were born alive, but are now awaiting autopsy results to confirm cause of death. One is left to wonder what role the father played in this situation; there were not one, but three babies.
Each time I read something like this I find myself becoming very emotional - moving between anger, disbelief and tears. Why? If you don’t want a child or another child why not try to avoid getting pregnant? If birth control fails, which does happen sometimes, then give the child up for adoption. There are so many couples in the world struggling to conceive who will never know what it is like to have a child of their own.
Ever so often these days, the news is filled with stories of babies and infants being hurt in the most horrendous ways. Children are precious and should be seen for the gifts that they are; not treated as expendable baggage that can be gotten rid of.
I guess I’m especially upset because we are in Child’s Month and in another few days we will also be celebrating Mother’s Day.
Science-mom says...
Jess, I know how you feel. We live close by - Germany and Austria are just an hour or two away by car. My children are half-German. We are confronted with these disturbing news everyday that I now have to turn off the car radio when I drive my boys around. What I find even more disturbing is how these events reflect on our society and our norms - indifference, fierce protection of personal space and privacy, isolation. In fact, people are so isolated they can be locked up and abused for over 2 decades or get pregnant 3 times without the neighbors or even family members noticing or knowing.