When Susan Smith first told her story about her children’s abduction during a carjacking, I was one of those cynics who immediately responded, “Drag the lake.” Not that I knew there was a lake, but because I’ve never met the mother who would leave her children in the circumstances Smith described. Our society’s legacy of over 25 years of legal abortions is a growing acceptance of infanticide, a belief that it makes more sense to kill a child than to live apart. The baby that once was left in a basket on the steps of a church is today found in a garbage bag in a dumpster. The children that once were left with relatives are now sent to the bottom of a lake, strapped in their car seats.
No, we do not really accept or condone these actions. Not quite. The videos of the little Smith boys at the birthday party were unbearable to watch. There are no birthday party videos of the hundreds of aborted babies, however, since they never made it to a birth day. Our society has accepted that unborn children are “part” of their mothers’ bodies, which allows the mothers to dispose of them as they see fit. Increasingly, those children already born are seen in the same way, because of their near total dependence.
We don’t really know what motivated Susan Smith to murder her children. It appears she decided that they were holding her back from a new life she wanted. Her logic was no different than that of aborting women. And as painful as their loss is to their mother, she knows, perhaps from experience, that you must suck it in, and carry on.
All over the world, people were horrified at her callous crime. How could a mother do such a thing? So unthinkable. People everywhere grieved for these two little boys, myself among them, yet we do not acknowledge the pain our whole society has suffered through the loss of so many unknown little boys and girls.
What made Susan Smith’s crime so unthinkable? Is it that her babies were people in their own right? Or is it that they were so adorable?
The media coverage of Robert Latimer’s trial in Saskatchewan, which began within days of Smith’s confession, was considerably more sympathetic to the murderer. Latimer was charged with the murder of his 1-year-old daughter, who had cerebral palsy. Whereas no one could imagine how Mrs. Smith could send her boys to the bottom of the lake, all sympathy was with Mr. Latimer who disposed of little Tracy. As a totally dependent extension of himself, Tracy was his to do with as he saw fit. He determined that the quality of her life was insufficient to carry on, and so he murdered her by carbon monoxide poisoning. Latimer is currently out on appeal, after being sentenced to a minimum ten years for manslaughter.
The pictures we saw of Tracy Latimer were, in contrast to the Smith case, almost grotesque. Not that she was in fact any less adorable, but the media and the family did not share that side of her with the public. We were supposed to be repulsed. We were supposed to understand that for this parent, the decision to murder her child was a selfish act of love.
Parents have been aborting “defective fetuses” for over a generation now. Are we to be surprised by a sort of retroactive abortion? Despite the alleged compassion for Tracy, there is ample evidence that caring for the child had become too burdensome for the Latimers, especially since the birth of their new baby.
You won’t hear it said very often, I’m sure, but the connection to abortion is inevitable. By accepting the false premises necessary to advance the cause of abortion “rights” our society has already capitulated to the acceptance of infanticide. The right to life is granted to a smaller and smaller portion of our population. We are well on our way down the slippery slope.
Sorry to be such a downer at the start of the new year! Promise to be a good chear next month. Happy New Year to all!
