A couple of days ago Jeremy Sear put up yet another of his Anti death penalty posts at his blog, as is my want, I have been posting the odd comment there in the first instance pointing out the moral inconsistency of advocating against the death penalty and for a most liberal availability of abortion. Secondly I was arguing that if these is no doubt of an accused person’s guilt that there is no way that the “we might execute an innocent” argument can be invoked. In the first instance Jeremy invoked the rather questionable argument that an unborn child is not a human being until it was born which I thought was an outrageous claim and then he went on to suggest that there would be a problem with expecting a higher standard of proof were the courts considering a capital case. Which sort of brings us up to this story from today’s Oz. Now here we have the case of a woman who admits killing six infants and it appears that she tried to blame her former partner for the crimes as well.
Celine Lesage has admitted to killing six infants and hiding them in a basement / AFP Source: AFP
Celine Lesage, 38, admitted before a judge in the Channel town of Coutances to killing the six infants between 1999 and 2007.
“I admit to the charges,” Ms Lesage said on the first day of her trial.
Asked whether the babies were alive when she murdered them, Ms Lesage hesitated and said “I cannot answer” before finally adding, “Yes.”
Ms Lesage, who has a teenage son, is accused of first degree murder and faces a life jail sentence if convicted, with no possibility of parole for 18 years.
She was arrested in October 2007 after her partner and father of one of the murdered babies discovered decomposing infant bodies stuffed in garbage bags in the basement of their apartment building.
The man, Luc Margueritte, called police after making the horrific discovery and is now a civil plaintiff in the case.
Investigators have described Ms Lesage as a shy woman with no apparent mental problems who claimed she lived in fear of her ex-partner and father to five of the murdered babies, accusing him of being violent.
But the investigation did not find that her ex-partner, 39-year-old plumber Pascal Catherine, had a “domineering attitude”, according to court documents.
To my mind it takes a certain kind of incipient evil to kill the innocent, not once but six times. Now as I understand it Abortion is freely available in France:
Abortion is legal on-request in France in the first trimester. Abortion has been decriminalized since the passage of the Veil Law in 1975. Abortion had been criminalized in France with the imposition of the Napoleonic Code. After the first trimester, two physicians must certify that the abortion will be done to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman; a risk to the life of the pregnant woman; or that the child will suffer from a particularly severe illness recognized as incurable.
So I just have to say that there seems to be no possible excuse for the criminal killing of these six children given the easy availability of contraception and abortion in France, Even by Jeremy’s whacky “they are not human beings until they are born ” standard this woman has killed six people so is life (which is not life if it is only 18 years 
) really enough to give those six dead children justice?
That is the moral dilemma.
Cheers Comrades
Iain, the first paragraph of The Australian story (which you have omitted from your quote) states:
A FRENCH woman accused of strangling or smothering to death her six newborn babies has admitted killing the infants.
So how does this case relate to abortion?
And what are you advocating as punishment for this woman, that she be executed? You have to admit there is something here that doesn’t seem to add up, namely what the hell did the partner think became of the newborn babies?
I have to agree with Jeremy that you cannot equate someone’s stance on the death penalty with their stance on the abortion issue.
The case itself does not relate to abortion Ray but I do draw on the discussion at Jeremy’s blog to make that connection which revolves around his contention that someone is “not a human being” until they have been born. My point is obviously that if you want to deny the humanity of the unborn to make the argument that killing them is acceptable then even by that standard this woman killing six children (their being new born does not matter) has committed murder. In times gone by she would have been guillotined but I think that a real life sentence would be justified for killing six children
if you want to deny the humanity of the unborn to make the argument that killing them is acceptable then even by that standard this woman killing six children (their being new born does not matter) has committed murder.
It would appear that it does matter that they were killed after being born.
Thought it was interesting that Jezza suggested that dead peoples’ fingernails continue to grow which proves that cell division occurs in non living tissue.
You gotta love a fellow with that kind of scientific approach to arguments.
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