Newborn Baby Boy Abandoned in Bushes in Illinois

[Old Coot]

Source: Fox News

WHEATON, Ill. — Authorities in Illinois are investigating the abandonment of a newborn baby boy in some bushes next to a garage in Wheaton.

The baby was found Friday morning in a DuPage County neighborhood near Wheaton College, according to Wheaton Deputy Police Chief Tom Meloni.

Officers canvassed the area and found a 24-year-old woman who may have been the infant's mother.

Meloni said the baby weighed about five pounds and still had part of the umbilical cord attached.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526125,00.html

[Ian David]

1. Oh, good. For a second I thought they'd left him with George and Laura. n/t

[katanalori]

2. shame on you for making a joke of such a tragedy....

damn it, I am laughing my ass off. :rofl:

[stewartcolbert08]

42. She could have

just left him at a local fire department or hospital with no criminal charges, thats bullshit that she would just leave him there to die. I want to adopt him now! LOL

[rocktivity]

10. DUZY!

:rofl:
rocktivity

[jmondine]

13. Damn... beat me to it

Great minds think alike

[stray cat]

3. She could have gotten rid of him by a late term abortion legally yesterday - now its criminal

[Ian David]

Generally not done with healthy pregnancies. n/t

[WriteDown]

5. Surely...

you are joking? One day from birth?

[kestrel91316]

6. Um, NO. Third trimester abortions are only available where there

exists a health exception for the mother, or the baby is terminally defective.

Your bright red underpants are showing.

[MADem]

38. And it ain't even New Year's Eve in Italy!!!!

http://goitaly.about.com/od/festivalsandevents/a/newyears.htm

....Oh, one more thing, don't forget to wear your red underwear to ring in the new year! They say it'll bring you luck in the coming year.

[No Elephants]

45. Wish I knew that before I'd rung in so many New Years. Can't wait until Deember 31!

[uppityperson]

18. Good grief, you certainly need to educate yourself.

"Third trimester abortions are only available where there exists a health exception for the mother, or the baby is terminally defective."

In smaller words, only for the life of the mother or if the baby will die right when it is born or is already dead.

[defendandprotect]

23. Is that you, Randall Terry . . . ??????????

[mamaleah]

37. You couldn't be more wrong

3rd trimester abortion only happens in extreme emergencies, as in the health of the mother or if the fetus is not going to survive due to major birth defects.

[No Elephants]

44. Got facts?

[phillysuse]

4. Baby abandoned in Wheaton Illinois, home of Wheaton

College. Most famous alumnus is Billy Graham. You used to have to sign a pledge that you wouldn't drink, smoke, play cards, swear or dance if you were on campus. My husband took a math course there as a high school senior - and they prayed before each class - and the prayer was not - Please Lord help me solve these equations.

Probably never learned about birth control. Another Bristol Palin type.

I hear they are calling the boy born in the Bushes Moses - wouldn't be the first.

[Psephos]

7. Never hearing about birth control is not the problem

Not using it is.

[JerseygirlCT]

9. Well, why would you know to use it if you never heard of it? nt

[Psephos]

11. Do you believe a sexually active woman in Wheaton IL has not heard of birth control?

A survey conducted by Sharon Cohen Landau et al., supporting a paper published in the journal Contraception, found that 99% of US women of reproductive age have heard of hormonal contraception ("The Pill"), and 98% have heard of the contraceptive patch.

These are just two of the methods available.

The idea that a sexually active woman in America has never heard of birth control in at least one of its many forms is risible.


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T5P-4M69JS8-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b86b2d8adf4a92ac390ebc989f4306e6

[riderinthestorm]

14. 25 year resident of Wheaton IL, and I believe it.

This is the place where the first question you are asked is "what church do you go to?"

There are many, many fundy homeschoolers in Wheaton. Fun factoid: there are more churches in Wheaton per capita than anywhere else in the US. It's the home of literally hundreds of "global" religiously oriented mission groups, outreaches, re-settlements, religious publishing houses like Tyndale and too many other fundy religious whack-job headquarters than I can name on 2 glasses of wine.

I moved in July from Wheaton. I've told many stories on DU of being an atheist there and the hardships me and my family experienced because of our un-belief. Henry Hyde was the Congressional representative in that district, his hand-annointed successor - Peter Roskam - is even more loony fundy than Henry Hyde, even going so far as having his minister over to "annoint" and "sacrament" his new home with special oils to ensure it's holiness.

It's a fucked up community centered around the worst elements of Christianity. There's a reason Peter Roskam had GHW Bush, GW Bush, Laura Bush, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and Tony Snow come to Wheaton - to pander to the monied fundy elite.

[Mz Pip]

15. We are from the same neighborhood

I spent 10 years of my life in Lombard, two towns over (8 - 18). Maybe things have changed since way back when, but when I lived there guys could get condoms from vending machines in men's bathrooms at gas stations. Us women couldn't get the pill but the guys had easy access to condoms.

Though I must admit that even back then the women I met who went to Wheaton College seemed more like 10 year olds than 18 year olds - giggly and silly. I'd grown up in a pretty sheltered environment but these women might just as well have been from another planet. Could not relate at all.

[riderinthestorm]

16. We just moved. My 12 year old daughter went through the initial 4th grade sex ed class

in Wheaton. This is the easy stuff: periods, taking regular showers, body odor, night time erections and emissions for the boys, and yes - the facts of life regarding sex. Nothing more. No discussion of condoms, safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases or the more intense stuff that's dished out in high school.

Fully HALF of her 4th grade class was pulled out of that "class" and the corresponding field trip to the reproductive lab.

Half. I was staggered. This isn't even the important stuff like "use condoms!" Nope, this was basic physiology.

I will admit, she went to Lincoln Elementary where there are a LOT of re-settled immigrants from the Lambert Rd. Global Outreach apartments, and perhaps they don't understand the form when it's sent home (it's only in english and from my work with this population, they honestly don't grasp everything and/or their children don't show them everything) BUT that means there are a lot of kids who are being voluntarily withheld - in the public schools - from sex ed. Pretty disturbing.

Had to edit to add that I grew up in Glen Ellyn. Spent many (underage drinking) hours at Ottos Bar in Lombard. Heh. Spent my college summers waitressing at the (now defunct) Sharko's Restaurant in Villa Park (again, lied about my age but the tips!! Wow! Paid virtually all my college costs from waitressing there.)

Glad to see another local here. I'm way west now - Foster's district. We'll see what Kane Co. has up it's sleeve (insert evil chuckle here). :hi:

[undeterred]

19. I heard of a girl who got her first period and had no idea

what it was... she thought she was dying. That was a friend of my mothers and it was 70 years ago.

[Mz Pip]

20. Okay, I've got to ask

wtf is a 'reproductive lab'?

I want through Catholic elementary school (Sacred Heart in Lombard) There was no sex ed, though Sister Mary Yada Yada seemed to be very interested in learning when us girls got our periods. Heaven knows what she asked the boys. :eyes:

We sure didn't have any reproductive labs.

[riderinthestorm]

22. The Robert Crown Center in Hinsdale is the go-to place for sex ed

The teachers are OFF the hook teaching it. They simply take the kids on segregated field trips now to the Crown Center.

I've never been. My 12 year old was pretty squishy about details. Simply dumped out her brown bag of stuff (deoderant, sanitary napkins, pamphlets, coupons etc.) and shrugged. We run a horse breeding operation so she's actually seen farm animals doing the deed since she was a newborn, and she can talk about mucous secretions, ovulatory cycles and semen counts with the best of them. I expect she didn't get any "new" info there but I'm guessing it's inflammatory enough for Wheaton parents .... :eyes:

[Critters2]

27. Thanks for asking! I went to a pretty progressive public school

(we used cucumbers in biology class to learn how to apply condoms), but we sure as hell didn't have a "reproductive lab"...unless that's a fancy suburban name for what went on after football games at Hennepin Canal park. :)

[Kittycat]

36. Local here, too.

Nice to see another around these parts. I'm IL-14 as well/Kendall Cty.

[undeterred]

17. Wheaton college- ugh

When I was in college at the University of Illinois there was a girl in my dorm who transferred in from Wheaton- apparently when her family could no longer afford their pricey rates. When she started at U of I she kept saying that Wheaton was "the Harvard of Christian colleges" as if we were all supposed to be impressed.

After her first semester she figured out that U of I was more demanding than Wheaton in every way and she shut up.

[Critters2]

25. I do home blessings, and am not a fundy wack job. nt

[riderinthestorm]

28. Eek. Okay, apologies. But if you look up Roskam's history you'd see, he's uhm, very strange.

And the "annointing" of his home struck me as beyond the average blessing.

I apologize if I've offended but let me just offer that I've know Peter Roskam since I was 6 years old. I have photos of us naked in the baby pool together. Him and his family are not progressives and I know them "intimately".

Peace.

[Kittycat]

34. Ugh. Bringing back memories of stopping...

at Starbucks before hoping on the Metra. I felt like I was interupting bible study ordering my latte. Wait, I was interupting. *shivers* I've since moved.

[PSzymeczek]

50. I went to undergrad

at Judson in Elgin. Same mindset.

[MineralMan]

8. I'm glad it wasn't in the bulrushes...

Another Moses we don't need, already.

That the baby is OK is very good news. I hope he finds a fine home.

[Prometheus Bound]

41. That's what came to my mind too. (from The Second Book of Moses: Called Exodus)

2:1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.

2:2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.

2:3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

2:4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

2:5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.

2:6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.

2:7 Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? 2:8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.

2:9 And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the women took the child, and nursed it.

2:10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

[proteus_lives]

12. Sad.

What kind of sick fuck would leave a newborn to die in the bushes?

[mopinko]

47. a rape victim?

lots of possible answers to your question, but one is undeniable- a woman in serious trouble.

[Mind_your_head]

21. Here's a better (local) link to the story

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=300182&src=2

[Critters2]

24. Illinois has a safe haven law. She could've taken this baby to

any hospital, police station, or fire station, with complete impunity. I don't know why this is still happening. Do people not know this law exists?

[EFerrari]

26. Or she was afraid to use it. If she was just post partum

there's also the extra added bonus of having your brain scrambled by hormones.

[Critters2]

29. True. That could be. It's real shame, though. This didn't have to happen. nt

[EFerrari]

30. I know. It's too bad all the way around. There are probably families

right there that would love to have that baby. :(

[Critters2]

31. At least it sounds like the baby is going to be okay. nt

[riderinthestorm]

32. I agree. But Wheaton is riddled with some very fundy enclaves.

True story: I worked at the U of Illinois' rape crisis center and women's shelter when I went to school there. A very progressive friend gave me the tip to get started and we were actually roommates our senior year. I loved her. Many years later she got in contact with me. She'd moved to Wheaton!

And become a Dominionist! Full fundy. Skirts, headcovering, homeschooling cause they taught the "devil" in the public schools etc. I was shocked. I hadn't known about this whole underground Christianist movement burbling in my burb. But wow! once you know, it's impossible to NOT see it. She was my "inside line" on an entire subculture that exists, not just in Wheaton but nationally.

I have no idea about the origins of the girl who delivered this babe and dumped it in the bushes, but honestly, I do believe there are more than a few who don't know there are safe havens. My friends' kids would never have been exposed to that knowledge. And they are living in an upper middle class Chicago suburb.

[murielm99]

43. I grew up in that area, too.

I grew up in West Chicago. I played in Wheaton Youth Symphony, and knew lots of the kids from Wheaton, Glen Ellyn and Lombard. I lived in Winfield until I was thirty. I worked for the Wheaton-Warrenville school district, and later for the Du Page County Health Department.

If you hadn't spoken up about the fundy infestation of the area, I would have. It has been that way for at least forty years.

My brother still lives in Wheaton. He and I have both witnessed the incredible backwardness of some of the Bible bangers there.

Wheaton College is something else. I have heard graduates of the place complain that they are in no way prepared for the outside world. Of course, that would be the graduates who are eventually exposed to the outside world. Many of them simply go back to their sheltered little lives.

It's hard to explain it to anyone who has not seen it firsthand, isn't it?

[DollyM]

49. Could you please leave home schooling out of this . . .

We have homeschooled for years, not because they taught the devil but because of the violence, lack of quality in education and the fact that I loved my child more than life itself and wanted the best for him. I don't wear skirts or cover my head. Homeschooling has nothing to do with this story and is not exclusive to fundamental Christians. There are many of us who home school simply because we want our children to get a good education in a safe environment and be able to convey our values and teaching to our children. My son was able to vote in this last election and voted Democrat. If we had left him in public school, he would have probably voted Republican due to the influence of the small town, small minded school system.

[Tansy_Gold]

39. Daily Herald article says suspected mother is from Burma

Could be she knew nothing about safe haven law or locations.



Tansy Gold, NW suburban native

[Liberty Belle]

40. We just had a baby surrendered to a fire station here in CA;

I wrote about it today for a local paper - happy ending, baby just got adopted. CA has a Safe Surrender law, too.

[Capt. America]

33. If I am not mistaken, I believe Wheaton has a "home" called Sunnt Ridge where girls go to give up

their children...

[riderinthestorm]

35. Gawd, Sunny Ridge on Orchard Rd. Hadn't thought of that. nt

[No Elephants]

46. I hope this woman is tried for murder, but safe haven laws need more publicity from the crap

media. Too busy reporting on which celebrities got to a porky size 4, I guess.

[mopinko]

48. since the baby is alive, i doubt that will happen.

maybe you should read the story?