Vegans or baby killers?
What should be punishment of the parents if they truly did not know any better?
AJC-This Buckhead newborn didn’t stand a chance.
By the time he saw a doctor, the 6-week-old, born at home, was dead. Fed a diet consisting largely of soy milk and apple juice by his vegan parents, the baby boy weighed just 3 1/2 pounds.
Fulton prosecutors say it’s a chilling case of murder by starvation, a painful and prolonged death. Attorneys representing parents Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle. Vegans typically live free of animal products.
“They’re not vegans, they’re baby killers,” Fulton prosecutor Mike Carlson told the jury Tuesday during his closing arguments. “Think about how long they had to listen to his screams and hollers.”
Thomas hung his head and appeared to nearly collapse on the defense table during closing arguments, while Sanders sat next to him listening intently. The couple’s attorneys claim the parents didn’t realize their baby, named Crown, was in danger until minutes before he died.
Jurors began deliberations Tuesday. Prosecutors urged jurors to convict the parents of murder, which carries an automatic life sentence in prison. Defense lawyers told jurors the death is at most a case of involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct that results in an unintentional death, punishable by up to one year in jail.
Did these vegans catagorize the child’s mother as an “animal”, and therefore not breast feed?
Wasn’t this an episode of House last season?
I blame the place where the child was delivered. Parenting does not come with a manual. There should have been good prentatal and postnatal care of both the mother and the child. The failing comes from the medical community in this couple’s town.
If you can’t blame the doctors, blame the mother for not breasfeeding.
FYI They got life!
The baby was born at home. How much you wanna bet that there’s now either a Prius or delapadated Subaru for sale.
I have to say I’m disappointed in the verdict. It seems completely overboard to me. This couple just lost their child, sat through a trial while they were made out to be murderers, and now they are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in jail? People have murdered in cold blood and not received that harsh of a sentence.
I think it’s going to set off a major controversy too among proponents of the vegan lifestyle. I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this issue.
PS. This was in an episode of House, MD. The same exact situation. Had a very different outcome though.
It’s hard to be a vegan these days let alone a stupid one. Some of these soy milk products are processed with hexane. People who know what they’re doing will find out whether this is the case with their soy product.
http://www.the7thfire.com/health_and_nutrition/truth_about_soy.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/darkside.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/darkside.html
http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/fdasci.shtml