[Note: This blog piece originally stated that the mother was just 14 when she had the baby, because of a paragraph in the newspaper report of 2.12.16 which read:
Courtney Saul, 19, was sentenced to two years’ probation in provincial court in Kamloops.
Saul was a student at Thompson Rivers University when her baby, George Carlos, was born on Dec. 15, 2011.
We now believe the paragraph should have started, ‘Courtney Saul, 24, …’ and will seek clarification from the journalist who wrote the piece.
We mention this because of some comments which reflected our earlier belief that the mother had been just 14 when she gave birth. We apologise for any misunderstanding.]
Our thanks to Norm for this. Excerpts below, my commentary in square brackets:
A mother who drowned her newborn son in a sink before leaving her home to write a university exam has avoided time behind bars, though a judge described her actions as “abhorrent.”
Courtney Saul, 19, was sentenced to two years’ probation in provincial court in Kamloops.
Saul was a student at Thompson Rivers University when her baby, George Carlos, was born on Dec. 15, 2011.
Court heard Saul gave birth alone in the bathroom of a basement suite where she was living.
She held the baby for some time, but she had an exam that day, Crown lawyer Will Burrows said. Because she had the exam, she didn’t know what to do. She finally decided she should drown the baby. She did that in the sink and then she went to her exam….
Saul confessed to police [the baby’s corpse was found in the boot of her car three weeks later, by firefighters, following an accident] and was charged with infanticide. Court heard the charge was stayed a short time later and, in 2015, Saul was charged with second-degree murder.
In August, following a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada earlier this year, Saul’s charges were downgraded back to infanticide.
She told police the pregnancy was the result of a sexual assault. She said she’d passed out at a party and woke up without her clothes on.
She believed someone had sexual intercourse with her while she was unconscious, Burrows said…
[There is no account in the article of any corroboration for her allegation. It could be a pure invention, possibly an invention of her lawyer. How often do we read in cases of women who’ve committed vile crimes, that they’d been abused by men – no evidence being presented for the allegation – thereby receiving leniency? Often, and the alleged abuse – unlike in this case – need not even relate directly to the case in question. How often do we find males receiving leniency for similar reasons? Very rarely.]
Defence lawyer Murray Armstrong noted the circumstances. [Alleged circumstances.]
This is certainly a tragedy in all senses of the word, he said, adding Saul remains troubled by the events but is moving forward.
Nothing is going to change what happened, but certainly now Ms. Saul is not a risk to anybody, he said. [‘certainly’? Five years after the event?] In terms of punishment, there’s no punishment greater than the guilt and remorse she feels. [Would the same extraordinary claim be made for a 19-year-old man who’d killed a newborn baby in cold blood? Certainly not.]
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Justice for Men & Boys 
At 14 she was a child herself.
Apparently unsupported and unadvised and not knowing what to do, she did the wrong thing.
Is she any danger to the public?
PROBABLY not.
Is there any point in years of prison?
PROBABLY not.
Would prison be a deterant to others.
PROBABLY not, since at the same age they’d be unlikely to know about it anyway.
So, a tragedy, I’d agree.
So that sorts out that bit, but the question remains, would a boy the same age be delt with much more harshly?
Very PROBABLY, yes.
Which brings me to my point.
Which is that society in general and the law in particular considers boys and men to be in general, (there will always be quite a few individual exceptions) more rational, more logical, more clear headed, more capable of objective thought.
And less emotional, less hysterical, less impressionable and less bidable than girls or women.
I would argue though, that these defining characteristics only really kick in in a big way at adulthood, and certainly after puberty.
Which is why boys don’t match, and then surpass, girls at school until their mid teens onwards.
Why should this be?
Because for all of human history until now everything was about species survival – that was ALL that really mattered.
Which meant that girls HAD to be able to mature and give birth as soon as possible above ALL else.
Which in turn meant that their developement potential stopped at that age.
There was no survival value (and probably LESS survival value) in anything else.
However, the reverse is true for boys.
The longer puberty is delayed the bigger, taller, stronger, faster, cleverer and more
RESPONSIBLE the end result
(i.e. a man) will be.
This must then mean that women, as a group, cannot expect in all fairness, to be given the same responsibilities and power as men, as a group.
This means they should be held less accountable, and therefore one course available might be for example, to withhold the vote from them, or otherwise limit their influence and particpation in forming policy, or leading or ruling large entities like corporations, or legal bodies etc. etc.
Infact, many women have chosen of their own free will to limit their own involvement here, prefering what must seem to them a more “balanced” life style.
Alternatively, these things might be withheld until a higher age for example and then withdrawn at menopause say, when women can become children once more, and barking mad to boot.
For example ‘Waterloogate’ where an actress aged about 64 at the time made quite obviously absurd allegations against a quite innocent man. (It could have been YOU gentle reader)
I could name her, but j4mb would have to kill me, and then could still not publish it anyway!
(As a side observation, the voting age should be raised for everyone, for young people have no memory of political and social events and would be thus capable of voting in, say, Tony Blair again whose last government corrupted everything it touched.
Those politicos who want to LOWER the age to 16 are attempting a gross and cynical corruption – but I digress…)
So in conclusion, if even the law – well known by Mr. Bumble to be an ass – recognises men to be more responsible than women what does that say about “equality”?
It says that it is a device, a fraud, a tool and a weapon designed to get that most ubquitous of human desires,
P-O-W-E-R.
Once got, it won’t be relinquished easily, and an age of oppression
(real oppression this time!) and suffering will descend upon men and women alike.
This is the intention the political class – women and men – who are substantially driving this, (others are just in it for the money).
Anyone else who believes in in “equality” is just a useful idiot to be exploited, duped and flushed away like the used condoms they are.
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In the UK it is rare for cases of infanticide to come to court at all. In the 11 year period 2002-2013 just 4 prosecutions were brought for a charge of infanticide. Despite this, in the same 11 year period there were 12 convictions for infanticide. This is possible because the convictions for infanticide result from a more serious initial charge, usually murder. Of the 12 convictions for infanticide, none resulted in a prison sentence. The sentences awarded for these 12 convictions for homicide were: one conditional discharge, two hospital orders, eight community sentences and one suspended sentence. An FOI asking what the original charges were which resulted in these 12 convictions for infanticide revealed that records had been retained in only 5 cases but in all of these five cases the original charge was murder. So – prosecutors persist in believing it worth pursuing a murder charge – but even when convicted, due to down-grading to the lesser offence of infanticide, prison sentences never result. Recall that “infanticide” is an offence applicable only to mothers. Fathers in the same position would almost certainly be convicted of manslaughter or murder and be awarded a long prison sentence. Very roughly about 97% of infanticides do not even come to court. I flatter myself that the definitive exposition of the state of knowledge on child killing in the UK is here: http://mhrm.uk/wiki/killing-children/ .
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