• CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If you had a heart attack while driving and so got into an accident and your children in the car were killed but you survived, are you a victim?

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        She had a medical condition that caused it. Just because you’ve never had such a condition doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The world is bigger than your experience. If you can imagine yourself having a heart attack forcing your body to stop driving and kill your kids, why can’t you imagine yourself with a mental illness that forces you to do terrible things?

    • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      If you were having a heart attack and deliberately accelerated and aimed your car at a group of people on the sidewalk, then you are both the victim of a heart attack and a murderer.
      Mental illness should affect where you are incarcerated and the type of treatment you get, but it doesn’t mean that you get a free pass.
      The US’s handling of incarcerated people, especially the mentally ill, is gross and malicious, but this is the choice that the voters have made. That desperately needs to be fixed, but setting a murderer free is not helping.

      Also, it’s really grotesque that stealing to feed your children, or sneaking across borders to give them a better life is worthy of jail time if you aren’t white, but if you are white then premeditated murder of your own children makes you a hero.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        No. That’s entirely not the point. If you have a heart attack and so your body forces you to fall unconscious and so you get in an accident and kill your children, are you guilty? Obviously you need medical attention and cannot be allowed to drive while there is any significant chance that you might do it again.
        Nobody is suggesting that this woman should be set free - she needs to be in a secure mental treatment facility until she is safe to be in society - and possibly that will never happen.
        This has nothing to do with those other issues or skin color. It is about mental health, women’s support and post partum care.
        If you can’t wrap your head around the mental illness cause part because you have no empathy or ability to understand things you haven’t experienced, maybe think about how one’s mind can be altered with drugs/alchohol, or how hypnotism can make people do complex weird things. Our brains are a very complex chemical system and can get out of whack causing surprising results. Post partum mental illness is much more common than most people believe because of the stigma and covering it up. It needs a lot more understanding and accommodation - that recognition and support would help avoid such tragedies as this case. Your inability to understand and empathize will only make things worse.