Heartless Halkett
June 24, 2009 · By Mark Peters
Contrary to the opinion of Justice Neil Gabrielson, I do not understand that a woman would give birth to a child, touch the fruit of her own womb and feel that he is cold, and then — with presence of mind — proceed to wash blood-soaked hands and arms before making a hasty exit while failing to notify a single soul of the fact that her dead or dying child is in a toilet bowl in the back restroom of the local Wal-Mart.
The mind-numbing callousness of Ms. April Halkett, at least on that day, is thrown into perfect relief when we consider that a complete stranger with no attachment whatsoever to the dying child noticed his precious little hand hanging out over the toilet bowl and immediately alerted authorities.
I ask you, dear reader, what differentiates these two ladies, the passerby and the mother? Is it not LOVE?
What Ms. Halkett did may not be criminal in the eyes of the state, but it was absolutely heartless in the eyes of this father of young children.
It is a disgrace. This judge failed all women with his ruling. He made us weaker, not stronger. He has allowed females to claim stupidity as an excuse. So much for the equality feminists love to yap about. This just put us back 20 steps in the fight.
Hey lawyer scumbags! How about it? How are you going to justify this latest moronic decision by our pontificating, black robed elitists?
No my guess is you will hide, keep silent and hope the “little people” will quickly forget about this latest outrage.
Maybe the reason you do not understand is because you did not hear all the expert evidence from the medical professionals who said that what the mother described is not unusual for someone in her circumstances.
If I had to choose between the evidence of an expert who studies these cases and provides treatment to these women, and the opinion of a blogger who knows nothing more than what s/he has read in the newspaper, I would probably choose the expert, since he is the only one in this scenario who knows what he is talking about.
There is a lot of things in this story that are hard to believe. For instance: she did not know she was pregnant??? Yeah, right!
Anyway, I agree with you Mark that love is probably the differentiating factor. However, I have seen enough women go into labor to recognize that child-birth can render a woman temporarily insane. I do not mean that in a derogatory manner. The pain of child-birth is clearly mind-numbing beyond anything that anybody else can imagine. I am comfortable giving her a little lee-way in the matter even to the point of child abandonment.
However, I like to look at these issues in an evolutionary sense. This child had a mother who abandoned him at first sight. Sad but that just might be a precursor to what he would have got from her in the future. Contrast that with women who, immediately after child-birth, want to hold their newborns tightly.
Regardless, I am fine with letting Halkett go free. This story stigmatized her enough. What would be the point in exacting any other punishment?
Gayle,
I’m sure there’s a psychological explanation for her actions. There always is, right? There’s always a way to just “‘splain it away” with psycho babble and absolve the person who willfully avoided taking responsibility for a newborn or his remains.
All I am saying is it doesn’t square with common sense or even basic human compassion for a newborn, or even stillborn, child.
No, common sense says if you give birth to a child then you’ll do whatever you can to ensure its life or to care for its remains in the event of death.
Loving, responsible people do this. Heck, even a passerby intervened, someone with no vested interest in the life of the child other than basic human compassion and regard for a child’s life!
Ms. Halkett didn’t call 911 to possibly salvage the life of her own child, or even to properly handle his remains. Instead she cleaned up after herself and walked out of the store, leaving the child she JUST BIRTHED in the friggin’ toilet.
Charles is correct about the stigma that will forever follow Ms. Halkett. It’s punishment enough I suppose. But why will there be a stigma? I suggest it is because the common man or woman views the sordid explanations of the professionals with disdain.
You don’t abandon your child in the toilet at Wal-Mart, regardless of whether or not he’s crying or blue and cold.
She did. She’ll wear it for life.
Well I guess you would know, since you have given birth so many times and all.
The fact is the explaination by the expert witness demonstrated her actions made common sense for someone in her position at that time.
She has another child. If children’s services believed her to be heartless and unfit to be a mother that child would no longer be in her care, and she would not have access to this child either.
But you keep making judgments about something you clearly know nothing about.
Gayle writes, “I guess you would know, since you have given birth so many times and all.”
What you’re saying, in effect, Gayle, is that a male cannot make a judgment regarding the actions of Ms. Halkett since no male has ever given birth. By your rule, only a woman who has given birth can judge another woman who decides to leave her child in the toilet after birthing it. Is that really your perspective?
Also, to say I have no idea what I’m talking about is pure rubbish.
I’ve been with my wife through two pregnancies and deliveries, both of which involved neo-natal teams and, incidentally, a blue-faced child who appeared dead and required special attention (umbilical cord twice wrapped around the little throat).
What I am struggling to square here is the massive difference in reaction to the potential of a still born child.
My wife wasn’t concerned about getting cleaned up or getting out of there when our child appeared lifeless, not moving, blue and growing cold. She wanted to know that the child was okay and was consumed with the child’s well-being. She wanted to hold him. Ms. Halkett exhibited no such concern with her child; not even a modicum of compassion or, yes, love.
Ms. Halkett’s actions, again, may not be criminal but they are far from common. The vast majority of women in this world would have picked that child out of the toilet immediately and called someone in the faint hope of saving his life.
No amount of psycho babble can square her actions with the common female response to a child in distress. What she did was deplorable and completely abnormal or uncommon, full stop.
True – most women would not behave this way, but who cares?
Most people are not mentally ill, most people are not famous rock stars, most people are not politicians, most people do not have cancer, most people are not suicidal…
Her condition was a legitimate explanation for her conduct. Stop comparing her to your wife – they did not share the same experience no matter how you might want to pretend otherwise.
The expert who testified did not do so in a vacuum. He drew from the experience of other women in Ms. Halkett’s position and condition – and that would not include your wife.
Meh, justice isn’t about “personal experiences”, it’s about facts and results, and the fact is, she abandoned her child which could have resulted in the baby’s death.
Has anyone mentioned shock as a plausible explanation? What about post-partem? I’m not a psychologist but I can’t understand why she did what she did.
Could it be she was so young that she was “scared” and panicked. Doesn’t that still make her responsible for this?
I’ve seen a person in shock once in my life and they were so out of it that the wandered straight onto the 401 and had to be pulled back to the shoulder of the highway. Is this the scenario the girl played out in court?
I just can’t understand this.
If it’s true that this woman did not know she was pregnant (which while not a common occurrence, but it’s also not as uncommon as one would expect), I can certainly understand that someone going into (pre-mature?) labour and mistaking it for something else might suddenly panic or otherwise freak out and become irrational.
I don’t believe that it was reported that she calmly got up from the toilet, closed the door, washed her hands etc and then just calmly sauntered out of the store. I believe she was a) in shock, and b) in a state of panic/hysteria.
I’m happy that the child survived and that someone happened by that stall and noticed. Whoever that was was a godsend. That being said, should the courts decide to grant custody of the child to this woman, I have nothing but sympathy about the guilt issues and likely some day explanation that this woman will have to give to her child.
I would hope that people would take a step back, take a really deep breath and consider all things before tearing this woman apart. I would think most people here have experienced shock at one time or another and can relate to how someone else could consider you calm and composed in that state.
Greg, I would also hope that our Court System also has compassion, which shouldn’t be confused with lenience.
In a hypothetical, if someone were holding a person you love/care for as a hostage in order to compel you to commit some crime or harmful thing, I trust that courts would take this into account, even if the Fact is that you what you were about to do was wrong and the Result is that you did actually do it. As I said, just a hypothetical.
Sure, compassion isn’t something I’m against, it’s leniency in the form of zero-accountability. Halkett will talk away from this “experience” with little or no accountability for her actions. While I presume the state will require her to prove she can provide for the child before they return the child, I still am left wondering where is the accountability in all this?
“Meh, justice isn’t about “personal experiences”, it’s about facts and results, and the fact is, she abandoned her child which could have resulted in the baby’s death.”
Wrong.
In order to obtain a conviction for a criminal offence, the prosecution must prove the accused had the required intent. Issues such as shock and trauma tend to show that intent was not there.
Which is probably why the judge – you know, the guy trained in what justice is all about? – found her not guilty.
“In order to obtain a conviction for a criminal offence, the prosecution must prove the accused had the required intent.”
That’s true for offenses of commission, but not of omission. E.g. persons convicted of criminal negligence are usually found to be derelict in a particular duty.
In this case the Crown failed to prove that Ms. Halkett had a duty to fish her child out of the toilet bowl.
” I do not understand that a woman would give birth to a child, touch the fruit of her own womb and feel that he is cold…”
You’re right, the cold is odd — I don’t understand it either. Cold would imply that it had been outside the body for a fair amount of time. After all, if it’d just been given birth to, it should be around body temperature.
She was charged with child abandonment, which requires a “willful” act or ommission – which requires intent.
It is irrelevant to compare this to a criminal negligence charge, but even if it were not, there is still a requirement to prove intent for criminal negligence, as there is for all criminal code offences.
The judge let her off for a reason that no one dares acknowledge. Simple as that. This IS Canada after all.
After reading Gayle’s B.S. it is clear she is one of these bug eyed, shrill, asshole women who will bend over backwards and twist the facts into contortions to absolve ANY woman of ANY wrong doing.
Because, as we all know, poor women, tut tut. They are soooooo oppressed & hard done by you know.
Piss off Gayle.
P.S. If you hold the opinions of these terrible, uninformed bloggers in such low regard, then what the hell are you doing READING THEM YOU MORON!?
Mind you Gayles is probably a lawyer, (aka: amoral asshole) who got a little miffed that the knuckle dragging, uninformed little people actually dared to critcize a member of the ivory tower, legal community elite.
Well now jon, if you don’t have anything nice to say about anyone, pull up a chair and sit beside me. lol
I suspect you are correct that Gayle is a lawyer and maybe a feminazi, but go easy there bud.
Jon
When you have to attack the writer rather than respond to the comments, that tells us more about you than it does about me.
What it tells me is that you do not know what you are talking about, do not like what I have to say, have no intelligent argument to make (likely because your opinion is based on nothing more than bigotry and anger), so you go with what you do best – silly little insults that you think actually mean something.
It’s kind of sad really…
As for me, if you learn how to read properly you will see that my comments are based on the facts as reported in the media. You might want to try that some time.
Hi Gayle!
One teensy little error in your last post: “the facts as reported in the media.”
No such animal as “facts” in the media anymore. :)
OK. Fair enough. My point is that you do not have to be a lawyer to understand what happened here.