Reply #22: "She was in trouble and she didn't know where to turn"

[gratuitous]

The Republicans are looking for "death panels" associated with health care insurance reform, but they're looking in the wrong place. The shredding of social services puts us all on our own little death panels. You don't know how to parent perfectly from the moment of conception? Too bad, because there's no help for you. And whenever someone says, "Maybe we should have a program or a place where overwhelmed parents can get some help," we hear the usual yammering (from both sides of the political spectrum) about government interference in people's lives, rampant nanny statism, and how can a bunch of bureaucrats know more about parenting than a mother (as if government bureaucrats don't have offspring).

If a program does run the gauntlet of negativity and actually get going, it's always the first thing on the chopping block when local budgets get tight. Tax breaks for overpriced condos must survive, but the community's children can make do with less, or nothing. Now, two more kids are dead, a woman is going to prison for the rest of her life, and a whole bunch of people will make themselves feel better about a sick society by pretending it was all the mother's fault.