Ya know I have to say that when AL spoke of society/or the legal community, having different standards for a mother vs. a father.....part of that rang a bell for me, (not exactly what she was saying though). Even though we are changing as a society, and are now admitting that a father has just as much rights and responsibilities, and can create just as tight a bond as a mother after birth....we are still not completely there yet IMO, as far as holding male and female parents to the same standards. We are trying, have come a long way, but we, as a society, still fall short many times.
But what cannot be disputed is the fact that a mother carries a child for 10 months in HER womb, and that cannot be done by a male. I don't think it can be disputed that that incubating, in most cases, does cause a mother to have an "extra" SOMETHING? with a child. In general I'm talking. Now don't get me wrong.....some woman are just NOT cut out to be mothers and the father is clearly the better parent in some, maybe a lot of cases.
But I think society, while trying to recognize that the father plays just as an important role in a childs life as the mother, still holds on to a belief, (whether it's a misconception or not), that the mother, in particular, should form an extra, unique bond with a child, simply from the fact that the child lived in her body for 10 months. How could that NOT create some kind of attachment that a man can never experience? KWIM?
And when a mother chooses to exploit that unique attachment (such as murdering said child), it should be viewed as deviant, aberrant, unthinkable. But I think this about a father also so.....? When a mother, who is in the highest position of trust and affection when it comes to a child, murders said child......it is sickening, angering, as well as puzzling to the majority of society b/c we hold that belief, whether we want to admit it or not, that a mother should never nor could never, break that highest form of trust. The trust of an innocent child. Esp. when it's the case of a single mother.
Now barring an accident, I would want the DP on the table for either parent who murdered their child, male or female. I would not understand either parent murdering their child, male or female, but I am saying that I do find it harder to understand in a mother.
So even with all I've said, I don't see that I would find it any easier to put to death a mother vs a father......I just think I find a mother murdering her child more baffling.
So with all society's strides we have yet to make.....to me AL's argument doesn't hold water, yet it did hit a cord about "how could she do it?"
moo
