Vegan parents guilty: 6-week-old died of starvation on soy and apple juice diet

[Courtesy Flush]

This is just stupid. This country needs to educate parents better. (Better? We don't educate them at all)

***********************************

The parents of a baby that died of starvation after being fed a vegan diet have been found guilty of malice murder, felony murder and first degree cruelty to children.

Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, will get an automatic life sentence for the death of their 6-week-old infant, Crown. After being fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice, he weighed only 3 1/2 pounds when he died.

The Fulton County jury deliberated the case for about seven hours.

Prosecutors said it was a chilling case of murder by starvation, a painful and prolonged death. Attorneys representing Sanders and Thomas told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle. Vegans typically live free of animal products.

"They're not vegans, they're baby killers," Fulton prosecutor Mike Carlson told the jury Tuesday during his closing arguments.


http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=185948

[SteelPenguin]

1. There's got to be something missing here

According to what I've read and seen on CNN...

These parents had a homebirth, which is not wrong, but they didn't have a midwife or doctor attend. Then they never took the new baby in to see a Pediatrician. Ever. The first time a doctor saw that baby was when it was dead in the hospital at 6 weeks. The grandmother is defending the two parents, but where was she when the child was starving to death? Their kitchen had no food in it. The cupboards were completely clean and empty, and the fridge only held a single container of apple juice, and a single container of soy milk, with one bottle.

I just get the feeling we're not hearing something in these stories. Might have come out in court, but it's not in the articles, which all seem to want to reinforce the notion that not eating meat equates one with being crazy.

And that's another thing that irks me about this story. Even if the parents were so crazy that they believed it wrong to even breastfeed their own child, that wouldn't make them Vegan. Vegan's are generally very health concious and know far more about what vitamins and proteins their eating and in what amounts than other people, primarily because they need to be in order to eat healthily. These people are either lying, or crazy. Not Vegan.

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. I agree. Veganism would appear to be irrelevant.

[realisticphish]

14. you may be overgeneralizing

of course, many (perhaps most) vegans are careful about health. But the definition of vegan is, essentially, that they consume no animal byproduct, correct? That doesn't neccessitate good nutrition. Granted, most vegans who DON'T watch nutrition probably don't last all that long (as sadly demonstrated here).

You can be stupid AND a vegan. They are not mutually exclusive. :shrug:

[AllegroRondo]

2. its not because they're vegans, its because they're stupid

[Arkansas Granny]

3. That's how I see it too. Anyone with any sense would have known

that if a newborn is not thriving and is losing weight, something is wrong and you seek help and advice from a health professional. This is stupidity and neglect. No excuses.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. That poor baby must have cried A LOT! Babies do that when they are hungry.

Wonder how the parents could have tuned that out?

[Courtesy Flush]

7. Not always true

I am a CPS worker. I once had a mom whose first child was healthy, but her second nearly starved to death because she didn't cry for food (we concluded).

The mom was developmentally delayed. She was high functioning enough to feed a baby who cried for food, but not enough to know that a non-crying baby also needs regular feeding.

Not all babies cry when hungry.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. I stand corrected then. But in my observation, having raised two sons and one grandchild, they

always cried when hungry. :shrug:

[Courtesy Flush]

15. That's why it's a real problem when they don't. There's no cue to feed them.

[davsand]

4. WTF? Vegans don't breast feed? Huh?

I'm confused here, really, I am. When I was nursing Material Girl I remember having several discussions with a few of my Vegan friends who were VERY supportive of nursing. We discussed even the bacterial impact on babies' digestive systems when they were breastfed as opposed to bottle fed...

Most Vegans that I have ever known were working WAY harder at nutrition than anybody else because they were trying to stay healthy along with meat or animal free.

This sounds more like extreme child abuse / neglect than any dietary issues.


Laura

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. i suspect (and this is just a suspicion) that the mother could NOT nurse

probably due to poor nutrition, and they didnt want to feed her cow/goat milk..

but werent bright enough to do whatever it is that vegans in this situation are supposed to do

[Critters2]

8. Vegans breast feed, and yes, are more careful about nutrition than most

The issue here isn't veganism, it's stupidity! A 6 week old infant shouldn't be getting apple juice--or anything but breast milk. Hell, if I can keep my dog healthy on a vegan diet (and I do!), a child young enough to breast feed should be healthy.

These people didn't know what they were doing. That that gets pinned on their being vegan just pisses me off!

[davsand]

9. As I recall, you were one of those supportive people I mentioned originally!

If it hadn't been for the support I got from my friends and my husband there is no way I'd have lasted as long as I did nursing that child...

And I agree completely with you that it is annoying as hell when veganism gets blamed for this kind of ignorance. I'm trying to be charitable here and maintain the mindset that these parents maybe just didn't know any better. However, it stretches my credulity that anyone could watch a child die of STARVATION and not seek help from someplace.


Laura

[Critters2]

16. I hope you found me supportive! I think breast feeding is so

obviously the right thing to do (that's why they're there, ya know!), that I can't understand not doing it--and for as long as comfortable for child and mom--unless there really is a medical reason.

Btw, I just got my announcement/invitation for the dinner--yesterday! I ended up having a meeting at church that night, so it didn't matter. Did hand me a chuckle, though. Did you all have a good time?

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

11. The parents are black

therefore baby killers. If they had been white? Just ill-informed vegans I suppose.

[realisticphish]

13. Um, ok

until you said that, I had no idea they were black, and I've been reading about this for several days.

Yet, I still thought they were baby-killers. Funny, that.