A legal drinking age...perhaps a legal parenting age needed?

[MG1968]

The switch and the rope is too easy. She needs to be made to suffer like she made her child suffer.

spending the rest of her life in prison, knowing that through her negligence, her baby died should be suffering enough.

the death penalty really should be reserved for the truly evil ones, like Susan Smith.

 

[utvolpj]

I in no way meant to imply that just because you are older means you would be a better parent, just that the on average they would be a lot less likely to make such idiotic mistakes like this one in question.

I didn't take it that way. I just look at things like the housing mess right now and have my doubts that many US citizens are smart enough to raise a child.

 

[OrangeEmpire]

spending the rest of her life in prison, knowing that through her negligence, her baby died should be suffering enough.

the death penalty really should be reserved for the truly evil ones, like Susan Smith.

I agree, she will have to live with this for the rest of her life. She is paying her time.........

 

[TennNC]

it might but there are plenty of middle-aged (or older) who are in no way more fit to have children that 15yo. Creating an arbitrary age for having children solves nothing. Plus, how the heck is it ever enforced.

Well, I think on average, the older a mother of an infant, the more responsible she tends to be. Of course there are exceptions, but science tells me a 15-year-old's frontal lobe is far from being fully developed and therefore lacks judgment to anticipate consequences like a 25-year-old, for example.

That said, I don't think pregnancy can or should be regulated. Hell, I think the legal drinking age should be moved back to 18, but that's another matter. I don't think we can deter youngsters from having sex either - it's natural for your hormones to tell you otherwise. I just wish we could do more to deter them from getting pregnant - encourage contraception, for one.

I know we're off topic from the original post in the thread, but that just depresses me too much to comment on it.

 

[TennNC]

spending the rest of her life in prison, knowing that through her negligence, her baby died should be suffering enough.

I agree.

If that woman is sane, she's feeling sorrow and regret and shame deeper than I can ever imagine.

I think sometimes we're so disgusted and angered by heinous acts that we make revenge our first priority, when that often doesn't do anyone good.