9-year-old dies after being forced to run nonstop for 3 hours as punishment
posted at 1:41 pm on February 23, 2012 by Howard Portnoy
The grandmother and stepmother of 9-year-old child Alabama child are in police custody facing murder charges arising out of the child’s death.
The child, Savannah Hardin, was forced to run for three hours as punishment for lying to her grandmother about eating candy. During the ordeal, the girl became severely dehydrated and began to seize. She died several days later.
According to TheStar.com, eyewitnesses told deputies that they saw the child running outside her home last Friday but didn’t give much thought to it. One neighbor told authorities he didn’t see anyone chasing or coercing her.
But coerced the child was. The grandmother, 46-year-old Joyce Hardin Garrard, ordered her to run until she was told she could stop. The girl’s stepmother, 27-year-old Jessica Mae Hardin, refused to intervene.
Later that evening, the stepmother phoned the police, telling them Savannah was having a seizure and was unresponsive. The girl died the following Monday. An autopsy report revealed that she was extremely dehydrated and had a very low sodium level. A state pathologist ruled the death a homicide.
The two women are being held on a $500,000 cash bond for each.
There is no doubt that left to their own devices children will behave stupidly. They will take unnecessary risks that sometimes have deadly consequences. The last thing the U.S. as a society needs is caretakers who don’t know where the line is between common sense parenting and child endangerment, much less when they’ve crossed it.
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If an embryo/zygote/fetus weren’t alive, it wouldn’t develop in the womb. Therefore, life begins at conception. This is simply a fact that you can’t dispute.
Both sides can argue the whole “human” vs. “human being” part of it all day long, along with the associated constitutional and legal issues. But when it comes to the question of whether or not the unborn are alive, the science is settled; they are, in fact, living beings. That’s what “science has to do with it.”
humili mente on February 23, 2012 at 10:09 PM
My younger brother kept dragging azz in the morning and kept missing the school bus.
My dad had enough and made him run/walk 3 miles to school, driving alongside him the whole time.
Score one for Dad.
cane_loader on February 23, 2012 at 10:10 PM
So it’s murder if the unborn child’s mother isn’t the one killing it? How come I don’t hear such outrage from the pro-aborts over fetal homicide laws, nitwit? I’ll say it again: The only difference between abortion and fetal homicide is whether the mother herself wants the child dead. Does anyone else besides myself find this remotely bone-chilling?
gryphon202 on February 23, 2012 at 11:43 PM
yes, biologically, at conception a form of life begins. in a different sense, a person’s life only truly begins at first contact with the world. what i originally meant is that the reason why people are more upset about losing someone we already had than someone we might have had (though we don’t know how he or she would look, sound and smell like). that’s an important cognitive difference. it’s human nature. i wasn’t commenting on my own opinion about abortion.
since we’re at it… the baby jesus might not like it, but most people have extreme difficulty considering a day-after pill tantamount to murder. you insist on a scientific perspective,, so here’s the truth: we’re actually created by… our parents. until we have some claim for a future, they own us, we’re completely at their will. because we’re near meaningless at that point, a mere promise. (by having a claim for a future i mean beginning to take the form and characteristics of a viable human being.) in other words, it’s the parents’ decision that leads to that biological beginning. as long as they have a good reason (that meets a common-sense moral standard), mothers should have a window when they can change their minds without causing physical pain or trauma to that developing life.
in other words, your right to pursue happiness begins when you can lay a claim on it. it’s the extended version of this very self-evident truth.
as a side note, religion should be completely irrelevant to the abortion question. this is not a bloody caliphate yet after all.
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 12:06 AM
i’m not much interested in your question, but i have an idea and wonder what you think.
in case of rape or incest, why don’t we allow abortions and then charge the father-to-never-be with premeditated murder? very solomonic, no?
this tickles me now, congress should put a bill to this effect to a vote at once.
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 12:19 AM
on a second thought, manslaughter seems to be the best we can get. still.
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 12:21 AM
So that’s what it boils down to, huh? You can’t defend society’s hatred of “fetal homicide” as opposed to our embrace of abortion based solely on the criteria of the mother’s desire to let her unborn fetus live, so you deflect with another question? Well buddy, “I’m not much interested” in your question either, and I won’t be until you can defend your position in an intellectually honest way. And here’s a little hint: You can’t.
gryphon202 on February 24, 2012 at 12:59 AM
Why would anyone be interested in any question at all you might have when you decline to address a question so clearly central to any moral understanding of abortion?
There is fundamental hypocrisy, as deep and psychotic as hypocrisy gets, in defining the fetus both ways. It is either a person or it is not. If it is not, you have no damned business convicting someone of murder for killing what is only a clump of tissue, however dear that clump may be to the prospective mother. If it is a person, abortion is murder no matter who kills the person.
You have made clear you do not regard a fetus as a person. So answering the question should be easy, as in: “Fetal homicide laws are completely nuts.”
Why didn’t you just answer the question that way the first time the question was asked, and each time thereafter? What is it about your world view and your way of thinking that made that simple, obvious and straightforward answer difficult for you at all?
fadetogray on February 24, 2012 at 9:13 AM
Um…how is killing the life inside them not causing trauma to said life?
MadisonConservative on February 24, 2012 at 9:41 AM
it was a joke, i already answered his question in previous comments. clearly, a mother’s decision not to have a child is not the same as someone else settling that for her. as i said, i don’t care what the legal category is, because it’s a moral issue.
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 9:51 AM
because for a certain period, it has no consciousness, no feelings, thoughts, anything…?
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 9:56 AM
Not if a fetus is a person, as is necessary if you are going to convict someone of homicide for killing it.
That makes no sense. That it is a moral issue should make the legal category more important, not irrelevant.
fadetogray on February 24, 2012 at 10:14 AM
again, as i said, i see these laws as knee-jerk and reactionary. they’re designed to satisfy voters’ base desire for justice and revenge, and to be politically impossible to vote against.
the killing of a pregnant woman should be classified in a manner similar to how abortion is regulated. that’s my opinion.
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 10:36 AM
If these laws are knee-jerk and reactionary, how come there is not the same kind of outrage against them as there is against anything that smacks of limiting abortions? Is the only difference whether the mother wants the unborn child/fetus/clump of cells to live or die?
So you’re okay with killing unborn children against the mother’s will. Thank you for clarifying that.
gryphon202 on February 24, 2012 at 11:58 AM
because most people have the cognitive and emotional capacity to form nuanced opinions, unlike you.
jesus christ, you’re such a goddamn pain. i never said that, why don’t you try to at least ponder what i’m trying to tell you?
sesquipedalian on February 24, 2012 at 12:21 PM
What you’re trying to tell me is inconsistent. So don’t blame me for not being a mindreader.
gryphon202 on February 24, 2012 at 12:46 PM
And what certain time would that be?
Have you ever had an amniosyntesis? I watched while they drew the amniotic fluid out. My baby squirmed away from the needle when it got too close. No feelings, huh?
But since you hijacked the thread, how about we get back on topic? You can’t convince me that a nine-year-old wouldn’t be complaining the whole time. Was there no other adults in the house during that time? Neighbors? They’re usually the first to pry.
askwhatif on February 24, 2012 at 2:12 PM
Sesquipedalian doesn’t think. It emotes. It’s a liberal.
OhioCoastie on February 29, 2012 at 11:16 AM
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