Katrina Effert will not even face jail time for killing her newborn infant.
Jonathon Van Maren, communications director for Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform, writes on the outrageously horrific case of Katrina Effert, a 19 year old woman who secretly gave birth to a baby boy in her parents’ home, and then strangled the baby, discarding his body over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Ms. Effert was originally charged in 2005 with second-degree murder, and a jury in Wetaskiwin found her guilty in the fall of 2006. That verdict was overturned by Alberta’s Court of Appeal in 2007.
Eventually, the conviction for murder was ‘downgraded’ by an Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench judge to infanticide, and in lieu of jail time she will now merely serve a suspended 3-year sentence.
In her argument, the judge stated that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept, and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”
Read the whole thing.