Did You Knock Up Juana Perez Valencia?

Nineteen-year-old Juana Perez Valencia, of Anaheim, has been charged with one felony count of murder after her newborn baby girl was found dead. Gerrick Kennedy reports in this LATimes.com blog entry.

Valencia is believed to have given birth to the infant Dec. 22 in the restroom of Sombrero’s Mexican restaurant in Stanton. The baby, apparently healthy at birth and weighing 6.3 pounds, was found in a plastic bag in a trash bin behind the restaurant.

So very sad.

Under California’s "safe surrender" law, a parent or legal guardian can confidentially surrender an infant 3 days old or younger to any hospital emergency room or fire station. No prosecution is sought against those who safely surrender a newborn.

And, I'll add - there are no strings attached. You don't even have to answer questions or identify yourself.

Women have more choices than ever before to avoid being responsible for a living baby:

--Various kinds of adoption
--Safe Surrender
--Various forms of abortion, including pills that induce early abortions
--Many different contraceptive pharmaceuticals and devices
--Tubal ligation
--Hysterectomy
--Oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries)
--Choosing not to engage in intercourse at any given moment

Yet, this stuff is still happening all of the time. It just goes to show you that no matter how many options there are (not all of which I think are okay, but they are there and legal), some people will still choose to do the wrong thing and the illegal thing.

We can't excuse this behavior based on hormones, unless we are prepared to grant men with high testosterone levels passes on rape. That babies can't speak up for themselves like rape victims should not make a difference. In both cases, we are talking about violating someone else's rights. Clearly, she was desperate – but only because of her prior choices. She had many months to deal with this situation.

With more choices comes more responsibility. I say we should be even harder on this sort of crime given the legality of abortion (which I consider murder in most cases). Sadly, the opposite tends to be true. Thanks in part to the "right" to abortion, some people don't see post-partum infanticide the same as murder of say, a 15-year-old.

I know women who fume with rage when they here stories like this one, because they would love to be able to experience pregnancy and childbirth, and have been unable to do so, some of them even with expensive and troublesome treatments and procedures.

But regardless of what anyone else wants – that was an innocent human being that was murdered.

Finally – as my title suggests – I want to know what waste of human potential, what sorry example of manhood, figured it was a good idea to impregnate a young woman who was not suitable to be a mother and had not taken enough precaution to avoid pregnancy? Let's not forget there is some guy out there who messed up big time. Yes, guys lose a lot of power once the sperm leaves their body, and almost all subsequent choices are up to the female from that point on – but he did have that choice. For decency's sake – if you won't stop fornicating, at least try to choose a woman who can handle the situation, and wear a good condom – better yet, get a vasectomy.