Meanwhile, in the United States, an Indiana woman has been arrested for killing her 13-month-old adopted Korean daughter. Terrible. BTW, just in case you didn’t know the woman was white, Newsis helps with its headline, “White Adopted Mother Arrested on Murder Charges in Death of Adopted Korean Child.”
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16 Comments
Sadly, the birth mother must be re-thinking the mantra “In the best interest of the child.” It about time Korea does the same.
Anyway I grieve for her loss.
A doctor had “prescribed Xanax and Lexapro for Mrs. Kyrie for some depression issues…” You’d think they could screen these people out before giving them control over another human life.
#2 Millions of people suffer from depression issues - diagnosed and prescribed meds or not - and very few of them wind up killing their kids - adopted or not. There are a lot of “these people” out there, and many of them happen to be excellent parents.
#3 Regardless, people with mental problems probably (no statistics on hand) are more likely to act irresponsibly than those with stable minds. So you’d think priority for adoption could be given to the mentally stable first.
Gonna be hard to screen those people out as antidepressants are the most prescribed drug in America with 118 million prescriptions a year, according to 2005 stats from the CDC (Centers for Drug Control).
Ooops…Centers for Disease Control
#5 Sounds like a small minority with alot of prescriptions. “1 in 10 American women take an antidepressant drug such as Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft.” (Washington Post). That’s alot, but that’s still 9 out of 10 mothers who don’t use antidepressants. I think there’s still hope for adoptees!
#4 Assuming a prospective adoptive parent’s mental health is a known commodity, I would think it is probably considered (as it should be) in the adoption process. I’m all for adopted children getting the best homes possible - and I’m as pissed off as the next person when it doesn’t happen - but it is inevitable that it sometimes doesn’t work out that way. (I suppose that Dutch couple in Hong Kong may have looked pretty good on the surface, mental problems or not.) Many birth parents don’t wind up being fantastic mothers or fathers either, which ultimately, I guess, can contribute to tragedies like this one. I’d like to know more about this particular case. I don’t know if there were any glaring warning signs or not.
Slouching_tiger’s stats indicate that there would be a real shortage of parents - and pilots, teachers, doctors, police officers, heavy machinery operators, etc - if antidepressant usage determined whether a person were qualified to do his/her job.
Some women are not cut out to be mothers who can take care of the infants. It could get extremely stressful for a mother if the baby constantly cries. I can see anybody can crack out of frustration and pressure. This mother needed help. I don’t think she’s a cold blooded murderer and to suggest she deserves a death sentence.. come on. That kind of talk trivializes the tragedy for all.
“BTW, just in case you didn’t know the woman was white, Newsis helps with its headline, “White Adopted Mother Arrested on Murder Charges in Death of Adopted Korean Child.””
Yeah, real classy of them to point that out.
#8 “Assuming a prospective adoptive parent’s mental health is a known commodity, I would think it is probably considered (as it should be) in the adoption process.”
We can assume the adopter’s mental health was considered, but we don’t know how rigorous the screening process was, nor what the Indiana State law says on antidepressant usage among adopters. (Adoption is a State-by-State law).
“Many birth parents don’t wind up being fantastic mothers or fathers either…”
Many parents who take antidepressants aren’t bad parents either. Just as 99.9% of Arabs who chose to fly within the US aren’t terrorists. Yet look at the racial profiling that is done in airports nowadays among airport security.
“Slouching_tiger’s stats indicate that there would be a real shortage of parents…”
See my reply in #7
“…and pilots, teachers, doctors, police officers, heavy machinery operators, etc - if antidepressant usage determined whether a person were qualified to do his/her job.”
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re a liberal), in most jobs today a full background check including medical history is not required, although I’m sure that day will soon come… Hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar.
Amen, cm.
cm, I reread the article, and I can’t find anything that says the mother deserves a death sentence.
#13,
He/She was figuratively speaking, of course.
#14
So was I, of course.
#15,
Smartypants.