Vegan parents starve baby to death. Is life imprisonment justice?

Question

I am very sorry this couple is serving life in prison for the death of their son. How does everyone else feel?

http://www.parentdish.com/2007/05/04/hippie-couple-found-guilty-of-killing-their-baby-through-a-soy-o/

Answer 1

Vegans are people who don't eat any meat or use animal derived products. They're not perfect, and they're going to make mistakes. They're only human, if you take away all the other stuff you SEE on the outside. We ALL make mistakes. Some less major than others, but we all do it. This is ONE case of VEGANS who happen to be IGNORANT. There are plenty more meat eater who starved their babies to death. Also, they weren't prepared for parenthood. I'd have to ask them what they'd been doing for the 9 months she was carrying the child. They had all that time to prepare. It's not too hard to feed a child vegan food, but you have to know what you're doing. They obviously thought it would be easy. They do deserve their sentence, but I hope they learn something while in jail. It's sad to see parents of any kind be ignorantly cruel to their children, and any story like this (vegan or not) just makes me feel that we should all take many more different classes in school. All pregnant mothers-to-be should spend a lot of time preparing, and if they can't do it on their own, when the doctor lets them know she is pregnant, the doctor should arrange for these classes somehow. Instead of trying to convince people that your way of thinking is right, just allow people to be themselves and find people willing to give these types of classes. So much talk about this stuff, but no one's taking any action other than crying out that this is wrong and so on. Move. Do something that doesn't involve complaining. Do something that will HELP those who need it WITHOUT being mean to them or forcing your beliefs on them. It shouldn't be hard, but people are too lazy to try it out.

Answer 2

FYI, there is no replacement for milk, it is too complex to be engineered.  Every time people try the result is unhealthy babies    

The moral here is:  When man resists nature, nature wins.  It is hubris to think we are smarter than tens of thousands of years of human diet and culinary tradition.  The doctors told people to use margarine because it was better for their hearts, 30 years later we found that trans fat is even worse than saturated fat.  With all the diet food on the market, Americans are still the fattest people in the world.  Mean while the French are eating beef in cream sauce.  Go figure.

Answer 3

It has nothing to do with the fact that these people were vegan, it has to do with neglect.  This sort of thing happens with children from families who are not vegan as well.

Answer 4

These parents are horrible, terrible parents, are you kidding me? They are abusive neglectful people. Their baby weighed under 3 pounds when it was finally hospitalized! They did not feed it a proper diet! You can feed a child a healthy vegan diet - what sort of mother would look at the skeletal remains that they found of that baby and think, " Looks healthy to me?" THIS WAS ABUSE, wrap your head around it.

Have you ever seen an infant as thin as this one was? Did you look at the photos of the body that were released? The baby looked emaciated, you could count it's ribs. The parents fed it trickled down soy milk and apple juice, a starvation diet.

Babies are MEANT to be breast fed. I'm a vegan mom and I breast fed my baby for 14 months. My baby ate avocadoes, fruits, veggies, grains, beans, and everything she could have wanted. She's a chubby little toddler now, perfectly healthy, never even had a cold.

This mother purposely chose not to breastfeed but did not acquire appropriate soy formula for her baby to compensate. They chose to make uneducated, stupid decisions as to their baby's diet.

It has nothing to do with them being vegan, it has everything to do with them being HORRIBLE, neglectful, disgusting people. They should be put to death.

I cannot imagine what sort of parents could watch their child waste away and do nothing.

Someone that eats meat could easily do the same - if someone fed their baby tiny shreds of chicken breast and a little milk every day for instance that baby would waste away within weeks as well. This is about not maintaing calorie intake, about not giving a baby a proper diet. It is NOT about veganism.

These parents are not vegans, they are murderers. They are twisted freaks.

What does bother me though is that people blame this incident on them being vegan. Unless parents are purposely underfeeding their child or neglecting it, or purposely eating a bare-bones and unhealthy diet in their pregnancy, you can't blame them just for being vegan. That's ridiculous. Some of the healthiest, soundest parents I know are vegetarians and vegans.

Someone that eats meat can starve their baby to death or abuse it or have a baby born with diseases and malformations too. In fact, statistically, most of the time, OVERWHELMINGLY in fact, you hear about meat-eating parents that ALSO HAPPEN TO BE child abusers or neglectful parents. But the media doesn't spin it as being because of meat, or come up with pesudo-scientific nonsense like they are abusive to their kids because meat made them aggressive. So why do that to vegetarians?

I pity people who are so prejudiced and ignorant that they'll look at an abusive, neglectful parent and say it's because of vegetarianism rather than the fact the parent is sick inside. It's the same kind of flawed thinking that blames the rape victim rather than the rapist, for instance. These people put the blame where it does not belong because it's convenient to them and their beliefs. Heaven forbid they actually concede on something or let go of yet another opportunity to bash vegetarians for no reason whatsoever.

Answer 5

Last month a 7 year old British girl starved to death. Her mother and stepfather were arrested, and their five other children put into care:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...

At no point in the wide media coverage were the parents' dietary preferences mentioned. Know what? I think they were meat-eaters!

Both these are cases of neglect; the parents' veganism in the first case is as irrelevant as the parents' non-veganism in the second

Answer 6

im glad they are in jail.. they are murderers.. regardless if they were vegan or not they are not idiots... they should have known.. and at 6 weeks.. there baby was 3 pounds.. and they didnt even know he was sick.. yea right i hate people like that... that child did nothing wrong and it should have been fed teh proper way... they wanted to teach a strict diet to a 6 week old baby??????? wtf.

Answer 7

let's hope they rot in their prison cell. idiots

Answer 8

Vegan parents who raise their children vegan are supposed to breastfeed or use soy formula.  These people were just dumb...It doesn't mean the rest of us are too...

How many meat eaters starve their babies?

I think they shouldn't serve life.  I think they just made a very horrible mistake.  They seem like they were young and misinformed.

Answer 9

I'm sorry but I don't agree, I don't feel sorry for them.  They should have been feeding that child!  Soy milk and apple juice what is that!! They should be under the jail!  (my opinion)

Answer 10

They're not vegans, they're morons.  Every single carton of soy milk I have ever seen clearly states that it's not to be used as infant formula.  If they read the label to ensure the ingredients were okay, they had to have seen that.

I think what would have been better is for both of them to be sterilized to ensure they can never have another child.

And why dredge up a case more than a year old?

Answer 11

I don't know all the facts about these people and the circumstance of the child's death to make a judgement call on whether justice has been served.

I will however pointout the irony that there are millions of parents in the US who are FEEDING their children to death and are still walking free.

EDIT:  Maggie, I'm freaking jumping-up-and-down in enthusiastic agreement with you right now... just wanted to tell you so.

Answer 12

Why in the h**l wasn't the baby being fed the mothers breast milk!!!!  Those people are mental.  Life in prison is pretty good justice.  I don't understand why someone would give a newborn apple juice and soy milk, I am sure the vast majority of vegans feed their babies properly.

Answer 13

In 2005, 899,000 American children were neglected or abused.  Almost all of them lived in families with meat-eaters.  So, which ones get the most attention?  The vegan cases of neglect, of course, because people are skeptical of the diet and it's health value.  

If there is a case where a child dies and the family happens to be vegan, the press is all over it...even when diet isn't a factor.  A few years ago, in Indiana, a couple was arrested because their youngest son died.  The police deduced that the child died from the parents' vegan lifestyle, but, upon further inspection by two doctors, the cause of death was shown to have been carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty home ventilation.  Only the youngest child died because they are more susceptible to illness.  Even though two doctors both found this, the court has decided not to uphold the doctors' findings.  

This vegan couple in the article starved their children.  This is a case of neglect not of a loving vegan family with a healthful diet.  But it is just shown as a vegan couple whose baby died.  That's not fair...obviously it's propelling stereotypes that vegans aren't healthy.

There are many many cases of children dying in meat-eating families, so why aren't these getting attention?  Because they are what society considers "normal."  Anytime you are in the minority, there is going to be negative attention.

Answer 14

homicide by neclect is still homicide. the lifestytle of the parents is not and must never be used as an excuse.

What I am interested in is if they still ar able to follow their vegan lifestyle in prison

And at least they get to live which is more than what we can say for their baby.. ironic that in their desire to save other species, they failed their own.. the baby relied on them for its health and well being but they neglected and betrayed that element of trust in order to be in strict adherence to their lifestyle choice..  So they get to keep their cool label and get another.. murderer

The other thing that bothers me about this though is that the focus seems to be the condemnation of the practice of veganism and using/exploiting the tragic death of a child to justify the condemnation. How many omni kids die of parental neglect? How many omni kids are born with addictions because of addict mothers?

Answer 15

You have got to wonder how they did not notice that their child was sick. They were either extremely sick in the head, or just cruel. And it doesn't matter which one they are: they should still be locked up. If you were sick enough to let your child die of malnutrition, then I would say that you are a danger to everyone around you!

Answer 16

Yes, they deserve it.  How could you not know something was wrong with that child?  Morons.  Life is a little stiff though.  How is it that molesters can get 10 years, and naive parents get life?  Whatever.

Answer 17

I think the courts are making an example of this case. They are definitley guilty of allowing their child to die by not feeding him properly, I think life in prison is too strong a sentence.

My son's best friend was shot and killed because he came outside and asked his neighbor to keep the noise down. That man got 20 years in jail.

There is a difference in these 2 deaths; one was a murder and the other, well....pure ignorance to whats going on around them.

Putting them in jail for life isnt the answer.

If I were the judge,......she would be ordered to have her tubes tied and he would be getting snipped.

of course, that will never happen in this country.

Poor little baby....

Answer 18

There is no excuse for what these people did to their baby.  This issue has nothing to do with being vegan. This is about neglect! Where were the child's pediatrician? As a mother, I know you visit the pediatrician several time during babies first six weeks. Any pediatrician would have informed these parents about proper nutrition. Any parent who could watch their child starve is sick! These people deserve the sentence they got.

Answer 19

veggietart was right....

anyone who is a vegan or vegetarian should know that soymilk does not contain the same nutritional value as breastmilk to a newborn and is NOT a substitute for formula.

any vegan should also know that breastfeeding does not conflict with vegan practice because it is the milk from one's mother, not from a different species.  these people are not only clueless, they are criminals and murderers, and they should be treated as such.