(Not so) pro-life vid of day: Breastfed baby dies from drug overdose
by LauraLoo
As reported by the Daily.Mail.UK:
Stephanie Green, a 39-year-old South Carolina mother, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing her six-week-old daughter with an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk.
As a nurse, Stephanie knew the dangers of taking morphine as a painkiller while pregnant and then breastfeeding… but in order for her to keep getting her prescriptions, she concealed her pregnancy from her doctors.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXEdmZi4Gq0[/youtube]
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
Apr.11, 2014 7:00 am |
Video of the day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Addictions can kill.
You KNOW what my take on this is.
Tragic
It does not seem like she was trying to kill her child, intentionally. I hope not. Our battle is against intentional infanticide and it’s legal industry.
Even so, the severe penalty is warranted. Her case is just like the heavy drinker who insists on driving while intoxicated.
We are all saddened and hurt by the tragic and unnecessary loss of this young life.
Oh that is so very sad. :(
At least she didn’t get an abortion.
“As a nurse, Stephanie knew the dangers of taking morphine as a painkiller while pregnant and then breast feeding. But in order for her to keep getting her prescriptions, she concealed her pregnancy from her doctors.”
Del – so this not intentional? How do you come to that conclusion given the statement taken directly from the content of this thread???
I do agree with the rest of your comment Del!!
Opiate addiction is horrific, I feel so bad for the baby.
Thomas here we go again. Oh boy. So we don’t necessarily think the *intent* was to murder the baby because she is clearly struggling with addiction. Often (from what I hear) you don’t think clearly when you’re craving a fix. Yes, it’s still a very clear case of child endangerment and yes she should have known better but I don’t think she set out thinking, “Hey I’m gonna kill my three month old baby.”
And I’m by no means defending her actions. I feel horrible for her poor precious baby whose life was cut short by her mother’s refusal to get help. I’m just explaining that’s why Del made the comment about it probably not being her intent.
Like people who commit suicide don’t intend to hurt the people they leave behind. They do, committing suicide is tragic and horrible and a choice and all that, but they (usually) don’t set out to ruin and devastate their loved ones. I think people who struggle with addictions are the same way.
Couldn’t she had just formula fed? That’s what almost seems deliberate to me. Addiction is one thing, it’s really hard to get out of, but why breast feed even if you aren’t ready to get help?
Poor, precious baby… :(
Jack, uh, yeah. Oops I didn’t even think of that.
That’s a really good point actually. Nevermind about my comment. I mean there is a lot of stigma against formula feeding right now but whatever. I’d be (am!) just like suck it, fancy. This is what I need to do for my baby. And I feel like when you’re baby’s life is on the line, the least you can do is pay up for formula.
Yes Jack exactly about the formula!!! Addiction does not mean the person meets the criteria for a plea of insanity. She is not mentally ill either from what I’m reading. But even if she were she would still be accountable.
LibertyBelle by your logic in the April 11, 2014 at 11:29 am comment, we should excuse every single DUI offender whose driving causes death of another – “well, your intent was not to do and you didn’t think clearly so will just blame it on the alcohol and call it a day.”
Thomas you missed my 11:31 comment and subsequent ones. Please try to get the whole picture of what I’m saying and don’t cherry pick. :) I do think she should be held accountable and I hadn’t thought of formula at the time I posted the original comment AND I was presenting an option for why someone might say it wasn’t her intent. I wasn’t saying that’s what I thought.
DUI offenders are stupid and dangerous and should have some serious consequences (like manslaughter).
Your 11:31 comment LibertBelle: Suicide may not be a good example in that the person does not cause the death of another. When one’s actions cause the death of another is the crux here.
Addictions are awful I get that but they do not in themseleves indicate lessened culpability. Her sentence speaks to that.
You are trying to accentuate a point I was not making with the DUI comparison LibertyBelle. Sorry you went there. Read my comparison again. Those DUI offenders that cause the death of another cannot have their action excused by blaming the alcohol and that is what you were arguing in that comment by concentrating on the addiction.
This is the reason I truly appreciated Jack’s April 11, 2014 at 11:53 am comment. Truly on point!!!!!!
OMG. I didn’t say they lessened her culpability!!!!
Besides, at 12:15 I said this in response to Jack: Nevermind about my comment.
So I already agreed that I hadn’t thought about that and she had a totally logical alternative and she is culpable.
But I already told you that she should be held accountable in almost all of my comments. You asked why someone earlier said her intent wasn’t to kill her baby and I explained *A* reason why someone could argue that.
For about the millionth time, *I* wasn’t exactly arguing that.
I think you’re starting to not like me as much as you clearly don’t like Jack.
Thank you so much Jack for giving a safe non-toxic alternative to this whole pathetic situation: if you are drug addicted, formula feed the baby. No one held a gun to her head to make her breastfeed her baby milk filled with opiates. This was infanticide. I am a strong proponent of breastfeeding but never to endanger the life of a child.
Please ignore the troll with the stupid comment about her not aborting her baby,
LB Thomas and I are bestest buddies.
LOL sorry about the mistake DLPL ;)
Just so everyone knows, this mom killed her child and was irresponsible and should have at a very minimum formula fed her baby, if she wasn’t ready to get help.
My heart does break for that sweet little girl whose life was cut short so tragically.
Everyone besides Thomas knows that you feel that way, lol.
I can’t imagine what she was thinking. It reminds me of the poor baby on the movie Trainspotting. I mean, I was a junkie but I can’t imagine feeding a baby opiate-laced milk… just. Wow.
Okay good! LOL I’m not some heartless fool! And yeah I’d never, ever feed a baby anything like that.
Actually, just earlier today Offspring1 got ahold of a chamomile tea bag (oops…) and I freaked out and googled if he was going to die. lol I’ve always been pretty careful about what I ate while I was nursing/pregnant because I know stuff can get through to them.
When you’re on morphine (esp when you’re a nurse! gracious!) it’s just a whole nother ball game. Like how could anyone not know that taking such a strong pain killer could OD a tiny baby?
I was a little skeptical of the stuff they gave me in the hospital and almost didn’t take it cause I didn’t want to hurt my son.
(not morphine… I don’t remember what they gave me lol)
I don’t think she deliberately killed the baby, don’t get me wrong. I really doubt she sat around rubbing her hands together and laughing evilly about how she was going to breast milk murder her infant. But a nurse should have known better, it just looks like she didn’t care about the child’s (and the older child she has too, she had pain meds lying all over the place where he could get them) well being. Doctor shopping like she did is pretty common for addicts, but it shows that even before the baby was born she wasn’t concerned with the baby’s health.
Here I am just pointing out a few inconsistencies in LibertyBelle’s statements and all of the sudden I somehow don’t think LibertyBelle agrees with the culpability. Did I ever state that? It may that we process the content of comments through different filters. I take the literal and process from there….
LibertyBelle – I have never been a person who succumbs to emotions easily. That is not my modus operandi and I don’t approach life from that perspective. For some it may be that “here we go again” kind of carousel, for me its just a more cognitive-behavioral way of looking at life. Reactionary emotions are a slippery slope. Hope this helps you in understanding my perspective better….
Yes, there’s nothing more human than having no emotions. ;)
LibertyBelle: that is the most incorect statement you made about me to date. There is nothing whatsoever that you can substantiate that with.
As a side note, I am a very direct person, if my commentary is any indication of that to you. I am one of those people who would say it but I have not. The reason is because that is not how I think of Jack. I don’t think that way of you either. I think you came to that conclusion because of our differences in opinion and nothing more….
That’s what I meant to say, Jack, about the intent thing. I’m not sure she sat there adn thought, “Well gee. I’m gonna take lethal amounts of morphine and kill my baby.” She just was stupid and didn’t care enough about her baby to formula feed (and like you said, you know, keep pain meds where her babies couldn’t get them).
Thomas, I’m so confused by you sometimes lol. Maybe this is what talking to a Vulcan feels like? ;) I mean, I’ve literally told you that that is not what I was arguing (and that I wasn’t arguing anything – I was trying to answer a question you asked about intent and obviously I didn’t do it well). and then you jumped all over that ONE comment and the intent you projected onto it and basically ignore all my other comments taking back the one you didn’t like.
Well that must be where we clash a lot then. I’m a gut-feeling kind of gal.
I am not driven by emotions necessarily. Did I not state that plainly enough. Some people’s modus operandi is 100 percent emotional and some do not respond that way. That is not an indictment on their character or whether they are a good person or not…
Well I’m glad I’m incorrect about you just not liking me at all.
Perhaps you aren’t aware, but you certainly can come across condescending and antagonistic and sometimes even petty in your arguments with me. You do sometimes give off a vibe of just not liking me, but if that’s not the case, I’m relieved.
I think I was a hippie in another life and don’t like conflict at all.
I respond one comment at a time LibertyBelle. Maybe its because comments don’t necessarily flow. Are you suggesting I should not respond to any of your individual comments but wait until you post say, 25 of them and than take the totality of all of them into consideration?
My response would be 15 pages long :)
“Maybe this is what talking to a Vulcan feels like?”
Lol yes. Except I think Thomas must be half and half like Spock is, because he’s not as logical as the Vulcans but not as emotional as humans.
Thomas, the problem isn’t that you’re direct it’s that you insinuate things about people, a lot. A LOT. And then when people (rightfully) say “hey that wasn’t what I said” you completely ignore the correction and go on with what you assumed in the first place. It’s incredibly frustrating to talk to someone who does that .
We are miles apart LibertyBelle and we do not affect each other’s lives at all.
About the condescending thing – are you still holding a grudge against me for that one comment about the “like” I made to Jack on the “homeless mom seeking job, jailed for abuse” thread? I think that must be it :)
Ummmmmmm that’s totally not what I was saying at all…..
Bahaha yes Jack I think he’s like Spock – half human and half Vulcan. Live long and prosper, Thomas! I come in peace. ;)
But seriously Thomas I’m not holding a grudge over anything. I literally don’t remember what you’re even talking about with the ‘like’ comment.
It’s just that because I view things in the big picture and I engage my emotions and can read between the lines of how people use language, I’m telling you that your words come across negative, condescending, and everything else I said earlier. You ignore it when we correct you about what we originally meant and doggedly stick to your guns about what YOU projected onto OUR comments. Which is wrong and frankly insulting and frustrating.
I’m a writer; words are what I do and breathe and love. So word choice and sentence syntax convey emotions and tone and such, not always perfectly, but that’s where I sometimes get the idea that you don’t like me. And it’s not because you’re direct.
I don’t assume but read what people post and respond to that. If anything Jack your posts go off on a tangent and bring the kitchen sink into every conversation. You are discrediting me because I look at each comment and respond to its content? eEally?????
Check it out who is the one who reads into people’s comments! You and LibertyBelle are just disagreeing with how I process comments and my commentary with some of the points you make.
“Lol yes. Except I think Thomas must be half and half like Spock is, because he’s not as logical as the Vulcans but not as emotional as humans.”
You must know me so well Jack. How have I survived and carried on in this life of my for so long?????
Enough insults Jack and LibertyBelle, you have gone too far. You have discredited me as a me. Hope you have a ball with one another on this thread. I am out….
Thomas I was teasing. I happen to be fond of Vulcans and Spock is my favorite character (I hate Kirk!). Sorry if you actually got your feelings hurt I was joking.
I do go off on tangents that is true.
Thomas, we’re not trying to insult you. I’m sorry that you took it that way.
You did say you don’t succumb to emotions, which sparked a pop culture reference. It’s a joke. We dont’ really think you’re an alien. ;) (But Spock is totally awesome! So if you’re going to be like someone, he’s a pretty cool guy to be like)
I was trying to point out how you make us feel, Thomas. I was trying really hard to give you examples. You must have missed a LOT of my comments on past threads where I state that you clearly have processing differences. All I’m trying to do is help you see how we see. And vice versa. We’re not trying to insult you. We’re trying to help you understand why we often feel like you’re insulting us.
Thomas if it makes you feel better, I call my partner Spock all the time. ;) And obviously we love each other enough to live together and have a child together so it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just a difference thing. It’s how emotional people process stuff – we make connections between situations.
Since we’re already on this Star Trek tangent…. Jack when we saw the Star Trek movie (the second one) in theaters, and Spock and Kirk were arguing about something and Spock is like, “This is not logical.” And Kirk goes, “It’s a gut feeling!” My partner and I just busted out laughing because that’s like 80% of our marriage right there. He’s all logical (there are some inappropriate but hilarious examples) about stuff while I’m off floating in the clouds feeling things and doing random stuff.
But thankfully our nerd hearts were united in Doctor Who and we found common ground. The End.
…anyway…back to the topic. I wonder if -IF- breast-feeding was part of her “cover -up” of her addiction ? I mean, who knows what’s on anyone’s mind, but maybe – in her mind- she thought “Well if they see that I’m breast-feeding they won’t KNOW that I’m using.If I bottle-feed, they’ll wonder why”.
Just a thought.
Pamela, great point. Using formula is actually pretty hard and you really get pressured/questioned by nurses and everyone as to why you are bottlefeeding. People will rarely just take “just because” anymore. They push and push and push breastfeeding.
it was still really irresponsible of her. But yeah I agree it could totally be part of the cover up.
Could be, Pamela. She did the typical “doctor shopping” that opiate addicts will often do, which is when the addict will go to several different doctors to get pain meds and will lie about their health issues to receive more. The breast feeding could be part of covering up the addiction. I really, really wish it was just ignorance on her part (sometimes people don’t realize that medications can be present in breast milk, and some diseases can do that as well), but she’s a nurse! It seems like she would have at least a basic idea of what opiate-laced breast milk could do to a baby. I do think it’s weird it doesn’t appear that she switched to heroin even after was seems like over a decade of opiate addiction, heroin is a lot cheaper and easier to get hold of sometimes and a lot of people who start out addicted to pain pills end up going for heroin as their addiction progresses.
I hope people will separate this case from addiction though… Addiction didn’t make her not care about her baby. Plenty of addicts love their children and would never put them in harms way like that. I am a recovering addict, thankfully I managed to kick heroin before I had children but I’ve had problems with alcohol my entire life, I still relapse every once and a while. But I wouldn’t put my kids at risk, I don’t keep alcohol in the house and I don’t get drunk while I have them. They are probably quite honestly the only reason I’m still clean and mostly sober, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d be dead. Addicts don’t get a free pass for endangering their children’s welfare. Obviously, I think that an addict with children should receive help instead of punitive measures as an early intervention, but if you end up killing your child your struggles with addiction don’t mean that you get left off easy. At the very least you should leave your child with a family member or turn yourself into social services. ANYTHING to avoid killing your kids if your addiction is that much out of control.
Well yeah and there are people who aren’t addicts who treat their kids horribly and abuse them and stuff. So no, this has nothing to do with addiction, just a very irresponsible mom who should have known better being a nurse and everything.
Poor sweet tiny one. After looking at the mom’s picture, I wonder if she’s stable beyond the addiction. Hard to say. But I wonder if she was in so much denial about being pregnant and being addicted that she honestly didn’t mean to kill her daughter. I would not want to be in her shoes for anything. So very sad.
Not to nitpick, but this story is “by Laura Loo” only insofar as it was plagiarized by Laura Loo.
Original story:
A South Carolina mother has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing her six-week-old daughter with an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk.
Prosecutors said Stephanie Greene, 39, was a nurse and knew the dangers of taking painkillers while pregnant and breast feeding, but chose to conceal her pregnancy from doctors to keep getting her prescriptions.
This blog’s story:
Stephanie Green, a 39-year-old South Carolina mother, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing her six-week-old daughter with an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk. As a nurse, Stephanie knew the dangers of taking morphine as a painkiller while pregnant and then breast feeding. But in order for her to keep getting her prescriptions, she concealed her pregnancy from her doctors.
You can learn more about plagiarism and how to avoid it here. After all, this blog does have standards to uphold. Right?
Most people would probably see the “As reported by the Daily.Mail.UK:” at the beginning of the story, and the link to the Daily Mail story in the first paragraph as giving credit, thereby avoiding plagiarism. In fact, it seems to exactly follow the “paraphrase and attribute” method from LisaC’s link. Not sure how LisaC could miss that?
In fact, it seems to exactly follow the “paraphrase and attribute” method from LisaC’s link. Not sure how LisaC could miss that?
I didn’t miss anything. You missed definition of “paraphrase and attribute:” “Use your own words, but still include who said it or wrote it.”
Below is “Laura’s” story, with her own words in normal font. The italicized words are phrases that she lifted verbatim (that is, stole) from the original story. Brackets indicate where she omitted words in the original story, deleted an “s,” or changed a verb tense. The only other change she made was to reverse the order of two clauses.
Stephanie Green, a 39-year-old South Carolina mother, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing her six-week-old daughter with an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk. […] As a nurse, Stephanie knew the dangers of taking morphine as a painkiller[s] while pregnant and then breast feeding. But in order for her to keep getting her prescriptions, she conceal[ed] her pregnancy from her doctors.
Anyone who knows anything about writing knows that this level of borrowing constitutes plagiarism. You might not know it, but a blog that claims to be a news site ought to.
LisaC now you’re just picky only to prove a point you don’t really have and discredit a person’s good name. Laura stated in the first paragraph “as reported by the Daily Mail.UK.” All else flows from that acknowledgement.
Adding “but in order” in front of her statement, Laura did not change the original meaning of what was reported in the Daily Mail as it is inconsequential to the outcome and only shows order of events.
Do you honestly think that the Daily Mail would have an issue with “but in order” and whether Laura acknowledged the paper before, during or after her synopsis??? If you do, you’re not the one who knows anything about writing.
Do you honestly think that the Daily Mail would have an issue with “but in order” and whether Laura acknowledged the paper before, during or after her synopsis???
I don’t think that how a source would feel about being plagiarized has anything to do with it. Avoiding plagiarism is a matter of personal integrity. For a news site, of course, it’s a measure of competence, professionalism, and reputability.
You don’t have to take my word on what is and isn’t plagiarism: there are ample resources for people who want to inform themselves. In addition to the site I linked earlier, this one is useful. The type of plagiarism committed in the post in question is called “mosaic plagiarism.”
LisaC now you’re just picky only to prove a point you don’t really have and discredit a person’s good name.
No, I’m saying that this site should hold itself to the standards of what it claims to be: a news site. If the blog expects people to take its pretensions to journalism seriously, it ought to adhere to the elementary tenets of journalism.
For goodness sakes LisaC:
Mosaic plagiarism: Lifting ideas, phrases, and paragraphs from a variety of sources and joining them together without careful identification of their sources. The result is a mosaic of other people’s ideas and words.
Laura credited the DailyMail.UK in her first sentence but did not use other sources to create a mosaic.
Now you’re not just picky but DESPERATE!!!
There is no plagiarism committed here. Not even re-interpetation of what was reported. The only exception you take is with how the citation was presented.
Laura, next time instead of “as reported by” change it to “according to” and plaster it btw every sentence of your synopsis. May as well appease LisaC, being that she is in an inconsolable state :)
So now LisaC starts accusing Laura Loo of “plagiarism”. Good grief.
When I was a kid I had this weird idea that it would be completely fine to steal people’s characters and story settings from books and make your own stories with them. I thought that’s how people normally wrote stories, lol. Don’t ask me where I thought the settings and characters came from in the first place, I have no idea. When I got older and discovered the internet I realized that would probably not be kosher to steal other people’s ideas, haha.
/totally useless comment, the drama about plagiarism just reminded me of my dumb logic at age eight or so, lol.
Bahaha DLPL doesn’t that pretty much describe fanfiction though?
I mean that’s how I started writing too but I didn’t obviously publish stories. I just took characters that I liked and embellished their adventures. My parents should have bought stock in a paper company – I filled sooo many notebooks.