Look out, guys! Those mutant horsemen behind you are REALLY scary!
I am giving up my clearly futile and misguided search for the most unethical conduct imaginable, even in the relatively narrow category of horrible mothers. My last foray into this quixotic realm was met with convincing rebuttals from many of you, particularly referencing the horrendous conduct of couples engaged in divorce and child custody battles. I am convinced. The human species knows no limits to its corruption, viciousness, selfishness and cruelty.
This story clinched it for me, a case of virtual mother-daughter rape.
An American woman living in Great Britain desperately wanted to adopt a fourth child, so she pressured her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant and provide the baby she wanted, to raise it as her own. This woman, not identified in court records to protect the privacy of her daughter and grandchild, is now serving a five-year prison sentence for child cruelty. Her daughter apparently became pregnant at 14, miscarried, and was forced by her mother to undergo repeated do-it-yourself artificial insemination using sperm the mother mail-ordered from Denmark. The daughter again became pregnant at 16 and had a baby boy at age 17. The mother’s strange conduct with the baby and her daughter alerted nurses at the hospital that something was amiss, and the truth eventually was revealed, leading to trial and conviction.
The judge in the case admitted to “an abiding sense of disbelief that a parent could behave in such a wicked and selfish way towards a vulnerable child.” Oh, don’t be so naive, Your Honor. Trust me: something worse is just around the bend.
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Pointer: ABA Journal
Facts: The Guardian
Graphic: Creation Outreach
Ethics Alarms 
You’ve never read any Dickens, Jack?
Kid stuff. This case would make Dickens throw up.
Okay, the sperm wouldn’t have been imported from Denmark, and there’s no mention of soot, but it is still terribly Dickensian.
I guess I’m just not too sure there’s too much that’s new under the sun.
Why is the popular opinion that morality has never been lower, when in fact morality has never been under such a worldwide microscope 24/7?
For true examples of perverse unethical behavior, just look at Southern Christians’ treatment of African Americans 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 150 years ago. If you can find a more morally bankrupt group in the history of our nation, please let us know.
The most abusive examples lie in Texas and Virginia. However, throw a dart at any of the CSA states and there is plenty to choose from.
Morality is low, JJ, or I should say ethics are low, since that’s what this site deals in. Slavery still goes on in Africa and right under our noses, i.e. human trafficking. Look to the Eurasian landmass if you want the real lowest of the low, though, where all the greatest democides (governments killing their own people) took place.
1) Morality HAS never been lower, since fewer and fewer of us are governed by moral codes, as in organized religion
2) Ethics tends to improve over time, with periodic exceptions. I don’t deal in morality, and I never said ethics have never been lower. In fact, they better than ever, for the most part.
I think there is enough blame to go around in the American slavery issue that it isn’t necessary to blame only “Southern Christians.” Many of the slavers were homeported in New England; many of the tribal leaders in Africa benefited financially from selling off their own people, and the Arabs had a big part in capturing and selling native Africans. True, it was a shameful time in American history, but the shane isn’t confined just to the South.
“This case would make Dickens throw up.”
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It certainly made me want to throw up.
For me (and I heard of it before it became a blog entry here), it was more a matter of “Jack’ll probably want to comment on this.”
It’s not that much worse than some of the crap I’ve lived through, and comparably screwed up to things that I’ve tried to help friends of mine get through (and away from). I don’t even really have much of an emotional reaction to these stories anymore unless I know the people involved.
Jack,
Unless I missed it, it looks like you left out that the mother engaged in a type of prostitution of the daughter. Although no money was exchanged, she was forcing her daughter into the sex market (for the first pregnancy, that miscarried) for her own personal benefit.
Add child prostitution to her docket.
Legally, there would have to be money changing hands to make it prostitution, but yes, pimping out her underage daughter is what she did.
Sorry, can’t comment…I am throwing up.
Disgusting. Immoral and unethical both.
Unbelievable. Makes me almost in favor of limiting who gets to be a parent. Does the daughter get to keep her baby?
This could always get worse on its own. It could come out that she needed another child because they were going to move her to a smaller council house because an older child was leaving or she wanted a larger house.
Wow, sometimes reading this blog is so very depressing that I don’t wanna leave the house…ever again!
But its values and aspirations are so..uplifting!