<#2. A rabid dog cannot be "fixed" but schizophrenia CAN. It is controllable with proper medication.>
wrong. what you mean is,, 'sometimes.. it MIGHT be able to be fixed'. most of the time, the person goes off it for one reason or another (unless they have someone watching them 24 hrs a day for the rest of their lives)... or they build up a resistance to it, it stops working, etc.... or it only works partially. there is definitely no black and white quick & easy fix.
I don't think I'm wrong. As I've said before, I have one-on-one experience with paranoid schizophrenia in my family. He has been medicated and doing well--from a bum to an educated member of society, succeeding at a difficult job, from a wild man to a doting husband and father--so I KNOW that medication fixed him. Yes, he will probably have to take it the rest of his life. Yes, his family and doctors all are active in monitoring him.
You are right that there is no black and white. Human beings are very complex and every situation and tragedy is its own. In the situation of this mother, she left her meds behind at her boyfriends, she sought medical help, her boyfriend and MIL called LE after she lost it during a visit, she told members of her family that she was hearing voices, and she was STILL allowed to have access to her child. She desired to breastfeed her son, which makes me think she genuinely cared about the baby's health and wanted a close relationship with him. She TRIED to avoid this, she took the baby to her sister and told her she needed help because she was hearing voices and sis brings little Scotty back to her! (This tells me her family didn't have a clue what the implications of schizophrenia are.)
(Did you read in the article that she said "He told me to do it, I didn't mean to kill him" Was she thinking her baby was ordering her to do this? Did she not realize that cutting her baby and eating his brain would result in his death?)
Again, IF she is determined to be legally insane, she doesn't get off scott-free: she simply serves her time in a different setting than a prison. I can tell you that if she is genuinely severely mentally ill, no court in this nation will sentence her to death. That's not an accident, that is JUSTICE.
ordinarylife- OK.. but i'm talking about THIS situation,, not your situation.
Reb, right now you are talking about this particular case. However, if the laws that protect the mentally ill from punishments that they cannot even comprehend, for committing crimes they did not understand the consequences of, then it becomes effective for MY relatives, YOUR relatives and ORDINARY'S relatives. Whether you mean to or not, you are advocating the death penalty for those who suffer from severe mental illness, not just this one woman.
I really truly believe that those of you who feel like that haven't had any personal experience with watching someone you desperately love slide into mental illness. It isn't something people choose to do. It could happen to any one of us.