French woman confesses to killing 8 babies

[JewelSong]

simply that this woman didn't want those lives to happen, which I think is insane.

Not for you to judge. Even women who have planned pregnancies sometimes wish it wasn't happening. And a woman (for instance) with 6 children and no income and no place to live may very well wish another life didn't happen...she is certainly not insane to wish such a thing.

Unless you have been pregnant and experienced the incredible flood of conflicting emotions that comes with it, you cannot simply state that it is "insane" to not want the baby.

And there have been other instances of mothers (and fathers) killing their children not because they are insane, but to spare the children. I am thinking of the Brazilian tribe in the movie "The Mission" who would kill a third child at birth if the first two were below a certain age...because each parent could only carry one child when running for their lives from the white slavers.

And there is the chilling (and I think, true) story of a slave mother who bashed her infant daughter's brains out on the auction block as she was being sold, saying "Nobody going to do to her what was done to me."

Desperate, maybe. Insane, no.

Which still doesn't explain this woman in France.

[Lhaewin]

I can tell you now a couple or more similar stories - about the colleague who was looking after a woman because she was due soon - and found her sitting on a bucket in a garden-shed, pushing. It was the sixth baby and the babies' father was the woman's father.

Or the woman with ten babies of which I delivered no. 7. She never saw a doctor during her pregnancies and refused my care too. The last two babies died during pregnancy and her life was in danger since the 8th baby. She kept getting pregnant. Why does she not use contraception or get tubal ligation? I've discussed it with her and her husband, but he was having none of it. In this family it is the husband who is mentally ill, but she can't leave him because she doesn't want to leave her eight children with this man and organising a clandestine escape with so many children is impossible.

I don't think we can even begin to understand what's going on in such families. There is no rational explanation. It's plain awful.

[Hachimitsu]

Wow really good points ladies. This in part why I am against abortion generally but don't want laws about it. It's still a day and age where some people still want to make decisons for women. (Not to mention governments getting involved with reproduction either way can be sticky, but that is for another thread.)

I really want to know about the husband now.

[Lhaewin]

I've read the French article about the husband and it doesn't reveal a lot, as far as I understood. The whole family sticks together and one of the advocates says that the couple were always close and supporting each other. It's still a mystery why the husband hasn't noticed the pregnancies, deliveries and infanticides.

[Hachimitsu]

Thanks Lhaewin,
Just knowing that helps. If the couple was so close, wouldn't she have talked to him about not wanting more kids? He may have have gotten a vasectomy.

[Nin]

Both of the articles do not give a lot of information which I find useful for this debate.

The first says that the husband has been released by the police and is back home where his children are supporting him but that he is not allowed to enter in contact with his wife. It does say that the couple seemed close to outsiders, but no inside comment from someone knowing them closely.

The second is speaking about the entire village as being in collective denial - the woman was apparently an integrated member of the community, judged by all the village as a "normal" person. Everybody is surprised and shocked, but do not call her a monster or a freak, maybe because her normality makes her too alike to the rest of the village so that they don't want to face it. That's the point of the article, anyway.

In our societies, infanticide is considered a horrid crime. But it has by far not always been that way. Maternal love is anything but instinctiv! For centuries, it was perfectly normal that several of your underage children would die, and in many societies, it was perfectly acceptable to let a child die which seemed unhealthy or which reduced the chances of the already living children to grow up. In ancient Greek, infanticide was a common means of birth control (and it is still far more wide spread in societies which do not dispose of birth control or which do not allow abortions). Now, for a woman living in France, none of this is true, but it may explain why it does not take a severe mental illness to commit infaticides.

[axordil]

The cultural norm in question, though, is not ancient Greece, it's modern France. Mental illness is in part a cultural issue, and the culture she's in defines infanticide as wrong. Is it as "deep" a wrong as killing an older child? No, partially for reasons L_M enumerated, and partially because of identification issues: we sympathize most with that we can empathize with, and we can remember being a child--but not an infant.

The thing that stands out to me is the repetition. She kept going there. Denial of one pregnancy could be written off to hormonal flux and post partum psychosis, but eight? That's something else again, some sort of cycle she got sucked into and stayed in for years.

[Maria]

(I have not had a baby yet, but from some have told me, there is going to be some crying out when labout starts.)

Making noise during labor is optional. I didn't on my three, other than some gasps and grunts. Not that it didn't hurt, but for some reason I really didn't want to make any noise. Even that blowing thing they have people do? I did that quietly. It felt wrong to be making noise.

[JewelSong]

Making noise during labor is optional.

Maybe for YOU!

[Primula Baggins]

I think Maria just means, yes, it's possible.

[Nin]

Well, birth seems to become easier with time. Hidden pregnancies and deliveries have always existed, so I can't imagine it, but I know it's a fact.

As for the cultural norm, in an article in my newspaper today, a psychologist analysed the situation of women in similar situations, because when it happens there tends to be a repetition (there are several cases quoted of women having killed several new-borns). First: Those women are isolated or at least feel like it, when it come to all questions of gving birth or birth control- like the woman who said, that she did not want to ask any doctor for birth control. They stay alone with that subject. Second: once the act committed for a first time, the denial usually lasts. The woman still does not want to see a doctor (also, because then she might have to confess the first infanticide, because often it's the first child), yet feels unable to face the fact that she might give birth and actually have to raise the child. So, she enters a vicious circle... because even not having sex any more is not an option because it would mean to give a reason to your partner for refusing it... What is rather astonishing is, that the woman had two children whom she raised apparently normally.

Anyway it was interesting to read and not all fixed on the details of that sordid story but a psychological profile.

[axordil]

Nin--

That sounds as likely a course for descent as I can think of.

[Padme]

Sociopathic/physcopathic people can and do seem to lead normal lives for great deals of time. They seem to have a weird introvert/extrovert thing going on. They can wear a mask of normal extrovert for years, but when it comes to deeply personal issues, the 'real' person they hide it with a very skillful mask.

Look at many of the serial killers, they kill for years without getting caught and almost always they work at some job for years and live in the same neighborhoods for years. Sometimes the neighbors say they were shy but all in all a good person and they had no clue.

As for this woman doing 8 times, I imagine the first time stuck with her, but the second and the rest probably got easier with each passing murder. Once a person dehumanizes another person to the point they can kill that person it becomes easier to do it the next time.

This is also one of the reasons why vets suffer from PSTD, they kill a person in war and have a hard time justifying it after, at least normal mentally healthy people do. I not saying all vets do this, but even the vets I know who don't have PSTD and killed the enemy have a hard time with it. My friend Paul is a Nam vet and he killed a person(s) in that war and he has always said killing a person even in self defense is one of the most difficult tramas to work through and that a person never gets over it.

When a person can get to the point this woman did there is most definately something wrong with her mentally and she is apparently very good at hiding it. But most physcopaths/sociopaths are good at hiding their true self.

[halplm]

simply that this woman didn't want those lives to happen, which I think is insane.

Not for you to judge. Even women who have planned pregnancies sometimes wish it wasn't happening. And a woman (for instance) with 6 children and no income and no place to live may very well wish another life didn't happen...she is certainly not insane to wish such a thing.

Unless you have been pregnant and experienced the incredible flood of conflicting emotions that comes with it, you cannot simply state that it is "insane" to not want the baby.

I said nothing about wanting or not wanting the child, or the associated responsibility.

I was talking about the killing.

[Lalaith]

I'd be very surprised if this woman was not mentally ill.

I wonder, too, about some of the women who come through the hospital; my mom never shares names, of course, nor any of other type of identifying information. But she'll tell me generalities sometimes. Like the woman she had recently who had been pregnant 19 times and had 13 abortions. Was she mentally ill? I have no idea, but I do have to wonder. Or perhaps she had a substance abuse problem. 13 abortions seems excessive and reckless to me, beyond what can even be sympathized with.

[JewelSong]

I said nothing about wanting or not wanting the child, or the associated responsibility.

I was talking about the killing.

Then I misunderstood you. You said that it was insane for the woman to not want those lives to happen.

this woman didn't want those lives to happen, which I think is insane.

So it seemed as if you were implying that any pregnant woman who doesn't want to be pregnant or want the baby, is insane.

[halplm]

I said nothing about wanting or not wanting the child, or the associated responsibility.

I was talking about the killing.

Then I misunderstood you. You said that it was insane for the woman to not want those lives to happen.

this woman didn't want those lives to happen, which I think is insane.

So it seemed as if you were implying that any pregnant woman who doesn't want to be pregnant or want the baby, is insane.

that is not what I'm implying, and I am tired of you trying to say it is, although I understand what you are trying to do.

[JewelSong]

Then what did you mean when you said "this woman didn't want those lives to happen?"

I'm sorry I misunderstood your intent, but your wording has left me a bit confused.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

He's already answered that. He stated "I was talking about the killing."

[JewelSong]

He's already answered that. He stated "I was talking about the killing."

Okay...I guess it was just worded oddly. Threw me off.