Now, here's something that really gets me heated. We have a brilliant 13 year old girl who hid her pregnancy from her parents for 9 months, who then threw the baby out her bedroom window after it was born because she was "scared." Please, you are kidding me. Put her in jail with Andrea Yates, and round up her ignorant 15 year old boyfriend, and the parents too. Do us a favor and rot in prison. There's no excuse for this.

[ Certainly, there's no excuse for killing an innocent baby, but this sounds more like the outgrowth of a more systemic problem, and one which I'm not convinced prison can solve. Prisoners are a huge drag on our society, the equivalent of treating the symptoms of a disease instead of it's causes. There's been a lot of motion lately in the medical community towards preventitive medecine, because it's cheaper to prevent a disease than to cure it, not to mention, more pleasant for everyone involved. I think the same sort of thinking is sorely lacking from discussions of social diseases.

Anyway, it's almost certain that the girl, at least, will be in jail for a while, and probably the boyfriend too. Negligence of that magnitude is undoubtedly deserving of punishment. I just think those who call for strong punishments ought to think extra hard about finding ways to minimize the number of people who recieve them. In some cases, prison may serve that purpose, but I don't think that's true in all cases. -k]

13 year old throws baby out her window and lets it die