Sunday night Laquasia Wright, age 18, was arrested for attempted murder and endangering the life of a child. That morning, she had dropped her twelve hour old infant son down the trash chute of her building in the Walt Whitman Housing Projects in Brooklyn, just four or five blocks from where I live. Wright lives on the eighth floor. Thanks to the pile of trash bags that cushioned the baby's fall, the baby survived, was heard crying by the building's superintendent and was then rushed to the nearest hospital where he is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery and live a healthy life - in an adopted home.
This story is heartbreaking on so many levels. As a pregnant woman who tears up at hearing a song from her childhood played in a grocery store, it's hard to maintain one's composure at the truly tragic stories like this one.
From what I have noticed, the knee jerk reaction at hearing this story is to judge Laquasia Wright, to assume she's out of her mind, or to immediately condemn her and her actions as absolutely unforgivable and she herself must be some kind of monster.
Yet take into consideration that her actions come just two weeks after another young mother from Queens, Dawa Lama, age 23, threw her newborn baby girl into the trash in a hospital bathroom. She was charged with reckless endangerment and first degree assault. Except that her baby died as a result of her actions and Lama could now face more serious charges.
The actions of these young women cannot be condoned by any stretch of the imagination, yet, criminal prosecution doesn't rectify either of these tragic situations. To me, their actions reflect panic and ignorance. These are actions of someone who did not know the state's Safe Haven laws, of someone who was not talked to about the option of adoption during her pre-natal care, of someone who received little - if any - pre-natal care, of someone who perhaps should have had an abortion but didn't have the resources.
Take into consideration the exhaustion that follows labor, and the hormones that flood the system - that Wright or Lama may or may not have been educated about (even if they had been, you forget minor details like that after labor), and we might begin to understand what had them panic. Up to 80% of women experience varying degrees of irritability, sadness, anxiety, or crying after birth as a result of hormones and exhaustion, while 10-25% suffer from postpartum depression. This side of birth is just biology and doesn't take resources into account. But from what little we know of the circumstances of these women, that both were alone when they acted, that Wright lived in the projects and was home alone just 12 hours after she gave birth suggests that these women lacked good quality care and education as well as an adequate support system in their personal lives, like someone who would tell them of the Safe Haven laws.
To me, the actions of both of these women just two weeks apart, indicates that New York should be doing more to educate young women about the options of adoption and Safe Haven centers. Most assume the Safe Haven laws are common knowledge, but I think this assumption is a dangerous one. Given that Lama was in a hospital -the safest of Safe Haven centers - when she decided she couldn't parent her daughter would indicate to me that she didn't know such a law existed.
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