Submitted by Dependent_Season_669 t3_zww9p8 in newhampshire
I see some comments on Facebook pouring out sympathy for this girl but I’m sorry, I don’t care how bad your circumstances are - you do whatever’s best and necessary for the well-being of the child. There were alternatives available including the safe haven law. Instead she left this premature newborn baby unclothed and exposed to harsh winter temperatures. She does not deserve this child and can only imagine the poor life it’s suffer if it were to remain in her care.
Also her father is Dennis Eckersley, it's not like this story started with the vicious cycle of poverty. I think most people no matter how poor would at least find a way to drop the baby off somewhere warm. She's obviously extremely mentally unwell.
She’s clearly incapable of taking care of herself, never mind the baby. This is the consequence of society’s total abandonment of the severely mentally ill. I know the conservatives were really hoping they’d just die of exposure before giving birth, but that’s not how it always works.
I’m genuinely not sure whether society is sicker than she is, though. How the fuck do we just let a pregnant woman with severe mental illness sleep in a tent in the blistering cold and act like that’s her choice? Fucking ridiculous.
She’s unfit to stand trial, I guarantee it. As unfit as a 13 year old would be in the same situation.
And then we have these disgusting fake news reporters making a spectacle out of a horrific tragedy. I hate everything about this.
Just another result of Reaganomics at work. Greatest president in history my ass.
> Everyone, I have a brief announcement to make. Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11. Thank you for your time and good night.
Her father is a multimillionaire that could literally buy and sell you hundreds of times over, but it was society that is forcing her to be homeless.
Poverty certainly exacerbates mental illness. Hard to imagine someone with severe mental illness remaining stable when they’re unhoused. But money by itself doesn’t cure mental illness if you’re too far gone to try to get help. Just look at Kanye.
We also have no way of knowing whether she’s seen a dime of her dad’s money since turning 18. He may be unwilling to help her. He may have disowned her. He may have abused her. She may have abused him.
Frankly, that’s all irrelevant. Whatever safety net she had from her family, she obviously fell through them. Society has an obligation to catch people like this. Housing First is morally and fiscally correct policy, but in this case, I’m sure that would not have mattered one bit. Perhaps it would have gotten a social worker involved sooner that could have recognized she needed to be hospitalized, but there’s obviously a deeper problem here than poverty.
BuT wHo WiLl PaY fOr It? Bleats the sheep, who sees nothing wrong with paying $80k a year to incarcerate them.
Trillions for war, pennies for the rest, from health care to schools and school lunches, infrastructure, jobs, housing, legal aid, consumer protection, you name it. If any history is still being written 200 years from now we will be remembered as a greedy, warlike empire that was merciless to the weakest among us while lining the pockets of our "defense" industries as if they were our True Gods.
You're making an awful lot of assumptions. You might wait until the truth comes out.
I didn’t make a single assumption there, pal. The circumstances are irrelevant. Society has failed if a pregnant woman is sleeping in a tent in December in NH. There’s no excuse.
There’s barely any homeless shelter
Our local for-profit (!) shelter nearest to where this tragedy occurred only has 148 beds, completely full every night, with some overflow going to a nearby "christian" run building where anyone lucky enough to be let in the door must sit all night in folding chairs, -never- lie down, and doze as best they are able while all the "losers" in this game of Malicious Chairs freeze outside in tents on the sidewalk outside the shelter or various hiding places in the darkness of the city and outlying areas that the authorities call "camps" but are really just people desperately trying to improvise what shelter they can while being constantly hunted by police, local government and property owners. Manchesters city government actually has a "Help Us Hunt Down The Homeless" (my term) webpage where you can inform on homeless people you see trying to survive outside. No, I'm not making this up. They claim they will do "outreach" but somehow the "outreach" usually quickly devolves into "Blue Lights and Pepper Spray outreach", tents being slashed, penniless people being ticketed, desperate freezing people being chased away to seek another place to hide, etc. If you are at the christian "warming station" you must sign a sheet to patiently queue up to use the single bathroom. There are two bathrooms but they say they are not sufficiently staffed to allow both to be used. If you go outside for any reason you are not allowed back in. While they have their reasons for some of these rules and they certainly aren't getting much help from the city, the overall effect is hurtful to the psyche and body and the willful inadequacy of the state and cities response to overwhelming human need and tragedy is resulting in multiple needless deaths at all times of year but especially winter, of course. There are hundreds trying not to freeze to death out in the open every night in Manchester alone. The heartless among us say they "don't want to come inside", "don't want help". Spend a night with the bedbugs, lice, scabies, flu, tuberculosis, Covid & general indifference at the shelter and you'll understand why some are reluctant to go in there even when they have the opportunity. It's shameful, and our politicians, police and a sizable minority of citizens seem fine with it... until it's their relative that freezes to death. Heck, some of them are probably fine with it even then. More than anything else, we have an Empathy Shortage in this country at least as severe as our housing shortage.
No doubt she’ll have an incredibly hard gaining custody, she’d need to show she’s on medication, have a stable job, a place to live, be sober. I’d say next to impossible
Gain custody? She should rot in a jail to the end of her life for doing this to a helpless infant.
I don't want to pay to jail someone. Death penalty instead of life in prison systems if it is beyond even somewhat unreasonable doubt.
That’s what I’m saying, that she really has almost no chance of gaining custody at this point
I’d say completely impossible. I‘d add to your list that she’d need to demonstrate that she has support from close friends and family. She clearly did not have that a month ago. It’s a gargantuan task for her to just live independently, or live in a group home, at this point, never mind mend those relationships in order to take care of a child.
From what’s been reported so far, this is not a case of drug addiction. Weed and coke don’t make someone floridly psychotic by themselves. So she likely has some underlying psychotic disorder. Without social support, who is going to make sure she doesn’t kill the child if she has another episode? The baby didn’t have a pulse when they found it this time…
She does not seem to be in her right mind though. Mental illness can absolutely distort your reality.
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Now imagine the mental health he’ll that she lives in. Obviously, she needs treatment and probably has for a long time. I can see why you’re angry, this is a horrific story, however, let us direct our anger where it truly belongs and that is this Country’s lack of adequate mental health services.
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