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Parents Killing Children…

We've had a number of stories lately on mothers killing autistic or possibly autistic children.

What can anyone say about this? Children are stressful, normal or not. Depression, stress, lack of supports, et cetera, are not excuses to kill. I do not doubt depression is real in some cases, but I do not tolerate any excuse for killing children. Even if we don't have perfect supports, there are supports in most cities and counties. Families also have a responsibility to intervene. It is impossible for me to imagine no one was aware problems were present before these children were killed.

The association of autism with infanticide is a common theme in media. I won't bother listing examples.

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Comments

  1. Larry Arnold PhD FRSAJuly 30, 2010 at 5:49 PM

    It's not just autistic children though, the problem is that "we" tend to have too narrow a focus on autism only news items, but there is that case in France now, nothing to do with autism whatever. It's not autism it is killing.

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  2. PoetCSWJuly 30, 2010 at 6:14 PM

    No evidence in at least one of the cases that the child was autistic. Colorado authorities think it was used as a justification -- the argument autism is so stressful, the mother feared it so much, that she was temporarily insane.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ClayJuly 31, 2010 at 3:08 PM

    I see that Saiqa Akhter is going to make a plea of being "mentally insane" at the time of the killing. Yeah, that's the only thing that could save her. Ah well, she must have been. The whole thing is just sad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJuly 31, 2010 at 10:17 PM

    It is incredibly tragic.

    ReplyDelete

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