A woman leaves her 21-month-old child alone in a car. Mom is a smoker and "inadvertently" drops a still-burning cigarette onto the car seat beside the baby. The baby, who is now 13 years old, suffered burns over 77% of her body, with results including amputation of all her fingers and loss of hearing (from antibiotics), which led to "a limited ability to speak."
Which outcome of this heinous situation this do you think is more probable?
(A) The child is removed, or is threatened with removal, from the mother's custody while still in the hospital, while the mother is jailed for child neglect (leaving such a young child alone in the car - a felony in the state in which this took place) and reckless endangerment of a child (leaving something burning alone in a car with the child).
(B) The mother is awarded a $2 million settlement by the tobacco company, Philip Morris, because the company was neglectful in creating cigarettes that "burn down their filter even when they [are] not being smoked." The company's rectification of this matter in 2000 by creating new cigarettes that fail to burn when not being smoked is not heralded as a new safety feature, but instead presented as proof that the company should be held liable for innocent victims of cigarette-related fires before 2000.
Sadly, if you guess (A), you're wrong. How have we reached an age where Child Protective Services workers might decide to investigate, without due cause, homeschooling parents for abuse, yet this woman was apparently off the hook because there was someone with deeper pockets to sue? Smoking is politically incorrect these days - but how does that translate to letting a smoking parent off the hook for her contribution to the severe impairment to her own child?
Posted by kswygert at October 15, 2003 11:48 AM