not necessarily but it's a possibility.

I don't understand . . . was the mother not breastfeeding? Did she think that somehow didn't qualify as vegan? And yeah, murder seems pretty heavy for accidentally starving your baby to death.

Of course, people are going to take this as somehow indicative of vegans, rather than just stupid people. Let the anti-vegan backlash begin . . .

It's possible they intended for the child to die. Soy milk and apple juice would be considered healthy to the average person.

Needless to say, 6 weeks old, they should have been provided with pamphlets and advice on how to feed your baby properly, as I'm sure they were.

Kinda hard to comment on.

*did not intend

How could you be convicted of malice murder and involuntary manslaughter at the same time?

sniggles @5, I was thinking the same thing. It is one or the other. Either they killed the baby by intent ("murder") or by accident ("manslaughter"). I don't see how it can be both.

On the surface, life seems overzealous. This is assuming it was a horribly stupid accident. If it was intentional, which nothing in this story implies, then it would make more sense.

"Of course, people are going to take this as somehow indicative of vegans, rather than just stupid people"

Exactly. There are plenty of healthy vegan youngsters whose parents clearly took it upon themselves to make use of vast amount of information about vegan parenting available in books, online, etc. Unfortunately, though, most people will just associate veganism with this horrific death, not the assholery that is really responsible.

I don't get the three murder charges. It was one kid, correct? What's the reasoning behind malice murder, felony murder, and involuntary manslaughter? Is normal malice murder NOT a felony? And where was the malice? Maybe 'stupid murder,' but I don't know how they got malice out of that.

If the mother didn't consider her own milk as vegan, perhaps she also didn't consider the child's saliva as vegan, and was suctioning it out so the baby didn't accidentally swallow any.

I feed my baby a diet of bacon, and he's strong as a pig. Therefore, it makes sense that a baby fed soy milk and apple juice would be as strong as soybeans and an apple.

Poor kid. I don't know what steps parents take after having a home birth, but I can assure everyone that having a baby in a hospital provides a mountain of pamphlets and nurse advice on nutrition requirements.

I wonder if the conflicting crimes were split between the parents (ie - one was convicted of involuntary manslaughter while the other was assigned the role of malicious murderer.) Either way, it's pretty disgusting and I will now blame all vegans for this mess.

re: 10 - I was thinking the same thing, that perhaps the parents had different charges. But if that were the case, it would be ridiculous for both parents to get life sentences (well, it's already ridiculous, but it would be stranger).

They're definitely going to have a hard time maintaining a vegan lifestyle in prison.

as a vegan homo, this is always my worst nightmare. because i know stories like this could find their way front and center if/when my bf and i decide to get us some kids.

but seriously there has got to be a vegan baby formula for kids who are allergic to milk, and could they not breastfeed? fuckin hippies.

A lot of baby formulas are completely vegan or just have incidental animal ingredients (preservatives, thickeners, whatever). They're essentially soy milk with added sugars and fats (vegetable oil).

Unless there was some kind of bizarre vitamin deficiency, the vegan diet had nothing to do with this baby's death. It must have been starvation, plain and simple. Why focus on the "vegan" part when it's probable this had nothing to do with the death?

Let the anti-vegan backlash begin . . .

My anti-vegan backlash began long before this.

Yeah, stupid ass parents. They had the baby at home, I'm wondering if she ever saw a doctor while she was pregnant.

This is pretty sad. Like Dan says, I wasn't on the jury so I can't really say for sure but this does seem really harsh.

Home birth? Vegans? Don’t even get me going. Too late…

I really have become even more annoyed by the whole woo-woo natural baby culture. There are a lot of stupid people out there. Obviously these idiots are a good case in point. But, the thing that really irritates me is the whole midwife, vegan , natural birth, home birth, bullshit.

I have had to go through this now time and time again with my progressive feminist women friends who are made to feel that they are irreparably harming their child if they don't have their baby in this very narrow definition of the ‘right way’ to do it. They are made to feel like failures if they have problems breastfeeding or if the choose to have their child in a hospital with a doctor. And using an epidural is a sign of weakness and poor character.

I realize that the whole natural birth and midwife thing began as a backlash to western medicines paternalistic bullshit that tried to take the birth experience away from the mother. But now I feel that women are experiencing the same judgmental dogma from the natural childbirth, breastfeed or die, attachment parenting whack jobs. This has not only caused mental stress for many of my friends but it has actually in some cases endangered the lives of some of my friends and their newborns.

It seems harsh to me as well, but note that it was the mandatory sentence, and it's from the same state (the same court?) that ruled a few years in prison for a 17-year-old having sex with a 15-year old (or something to that effect). Then, the judge made the point that since there have been mandatory sentencing guidelines imposed on them to prevent "judicial activism", there was nothing he could do. Now we have another example of this.

Soy milk, on every container, says something to the effect of "NOT FOR USE AS AN INFANT FORMULA." as...another gay vegan (yeah #12! there IS another) i know that there are soy formulas out there. and when you think about raising babies, if they are breastfed, they are going to be very close to vegan: lots of mashed up fruits and veggies. you don't feed newborns steak and potatoes, that would be just as stupid.

and what kind of parents don't realize it when their child weighs half as much two months after he's born? it seems counterintuitive.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/05/02/0503metvegan.html
^more detailed account

Life seems about right. This is malicious neglect, even if the parents were too stupid to realize. Ignorantem non curat lex, after all.

We've seen countless cases where parents for religious reasons have done highly irregular things with their child's care (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses denying their children blood transfusions), and the court has only rarely allowed freedom of religion to supersede the societal expectations that parents don't abuse or neglect their children. Why would it be otherwise in a case where freedom of religion isn't even involved?

I have some borderline vegan friends whose first child wasn't thriving. In the end, they decided to start feeding him meat to up his protein content. Why? Because that kid's life was more important to them than their anti-meat convictions.

Whereas these idiots in Florida... where's these parents brains to know that a 6-week old child shouldn't weigh LESS than they do when they're born? And what does this mother think those mammary glands on the front of her are for, strip clubs?

(For that matter, where's the midwife? Where's the doula? Where's the public health nurse? Where are the classes and the training and all the aftercare? And yeah, they probably hate hospitals as eevl and all, but again, where's the midwife to look in on them and get help teaching mom how to breastfeed?)

I'm sorry, but these parents should get life. If they're too stupid to get classes, talk to their midwives and doulas, or just breastfeed because their convictions are more important than reality, life is more than they deserve.

(And yeah, I have issues with vegans, but I also know a vast majority of them would never pull crap like this.)

If an adult decides to become vegan, more power to them. But raising a child vegan should be against the law.

@16:
I'm with you on vegans, but research clearly shows clearly that home births with a trained midwife have a much smaller rate of complications compared to hospital births. And a good midwife will send her client to the hospital if there are any signs of trouble either before or during the birth.

@18, that's what I'm talking about. There are perfectly healthy and smart ways to raise children vegan (including breast milk, of course). Just because these people did it wrong/stupidly does not mean plenty of people aren't doing it right all over the place. But yeah, go ahead, lock 'em up if it makes you feel better for feeding your kids animal parts.

Plenty of murderers of adults don't even get life sentences. I guess those vegans should be relieved that they haven't been sentenced to die.

Sorry, that should've been @20 . . .

RE: 20, Why? Vegan diets are perfectly healthy for children and adults. These parents were just dumb about it. If it were so unhealthy, there would be tons more cases like this, of which there are not. True, vegan parents should consult with a nutritionist and raise their children healthily, but in reality, there is nothing inherently wrong with a vegan lifestyle for any age. Unless you think that less heart disease, less cancer, less alzheimers, less diabetes, and less obesity are all bad things from a vegan diet. Not to mention the smaller environmental impact (hey ECB) and reduced amount of suffering in this world. Did I forget anything?

Yeah, you forgot what judgmental fucks you guys are.

By not eating animal products, I'm not making your world worse, but you are certainly making mine worse, through pollution, ecological devastation, and environmental degradation. I think it's fair that I'm at least a bit angry about that.
http://goveg.com/environment.asp

Laser Wolf, is that directed at the vegans? Because we're not the ones suggesting people go to jail for raising their children in accordance with their ethics. So, who's being judgmental?

I'm in the camp of "don't raise your kids vegan," not because it could be unhealthy, but because being vegan is a moral and ethical lifestyle choice that should be made by fully understanding all the facts. While it is perfectly possible to raise healthy vegan kids, wouldn't you rather they make their own decisions? In addition, I wonder how difficult it could become when the kids want the food their peers eat, or go through the inevitable "picky" phases (I went through one where I would only eat things that had spaghetti sauce on them, and another where I ate ketchup sandwiches).

But then, I'm with Dawkins in that I think it's child abuse to raise a kid in a religion, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

From the article

Although the life sentences were automatic,

Which implies sentencing guidelines. No need to stereotype - in urban Atlanta - a vengeful southern jury.

The father comments at the end of the article, "I'm dying every day in [in jail] ... and [a new trial] could take three years." Gee, almost like being gradually murdered.

The parents' dietary dogma eclipsed the material health of their child. I'm sure the physical effects were ostensible for awhile and ignored based on a legitimate (and admirable, I think) adult choice imposed on a nutritionally needy (and ought-to-be growing) baby. Although life may be excessive, what they did was pretty sick.

I see your point, Ethyl (and I'm with you on religion), but there are rational, logical reasons to be vegan without even getting into animal rights/welfare (personal health, environmental welfare, etc.). The same cannot be said for raising a child in a religion.

And as to your other point, people generally don't allow their very young children to make decisions about what they eat when they're feeding them animal products, so why should it be any different the other way around?

If I were to have a child, I would raise it vegan, and all food I bought for it would be vegan. Once it got to the age where it could make its own choices, of course I would let it buy and eat whatever it wanted (how could one do otherwise?) if it desired non-vegan food, but any food I bought and prepared would be vegan. I'm pretty sure that's what most parents who raise vegan children do.

Felony Murder applies when a death occurs during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony - the defendant is held strictly liable for that death. Here, the ID felony probably is something to do with starving a child. FM is not necessary for 2nd degree murder and up becuase those offenses are already murder.

Involuntary Manslaughter occurs when the defendant disregards an obvious risk and death results. Here, not properly feeding the child creates an obvious risk.

Malice Murder is either voluntary manslaughter, where the defendant intends to kill the victim, or 1st degree murder, where the murder is premeditated.

@5 & 6: You can be convicted of IM and Malice Murder because they address different conduct. IM deals with unnecessarily risking the child's life by not feeding the kid, and Malice Murder involves the parents' specific intent to murder the child as shown by planning, motive, or manner. Manner, starvation, was probably the kicker here.

@26: you're saying that parents should be forced to feed chopped up animals to their children, and we're judgmental? Kettle calling...

(I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan, just pro-food-choice and liberty in general.)

Really, in this case, the fact that they were vegan is beside the point. The headline of the AJC article should be "Murder Verdict for Terrible Parents."

It seems odd to me this couple would be so poorly educated on the proper vegan nourishment of an infant child, considering vegans have always come off to me as people who need to do constant research in their lives to guarantee the purity of their lifestyle.

I think race may have been an issue for the couple as well. And @36, in the video interview I saw with them on CNN, they weren't very bright at all.

"Unless you think that less heart disease, less cancer, less alzheimers, less diabetes, and less obesity are all bad things from a vegan diet."

These are good things. But the bad things that can come with a vegan diet are anemia, rickets, cretinism in children, osteomalacia, and hyperthyroidism. Not to mention a greater risk of bone fractures than meat eaters and vegetarians.

"there are rational, logical reasons to be vegan without even getting into animal rights/welfare (personal health, environmental welfare, etc.)"

Do tell. What are these mystical reasons (outside of the benefits that can be obtained from eating a normal, balanced diet, of course)?

Is cancer easily treated? What about rickets? One has a very easy solution (get more sunlight or Vitamin D) the other has no known general cure as of yet. I know this is but one example, but a balanced vegan diet will not end in any of the things you mentioned. Veganism prevents most of the diseases of affluence, and most diseases of poverty as well as long as it is looked after carefully.

I've known vegetarians who basically lived on candy bars (hey, it's not meat, right?) so although most of the time being vegan or vegetarian means being extremely well-informed about food, it's not guaranteed.

And usually people who have home births are very well-informed. That's why they have home births, after all--in the hospital you have a far higher chance of complications, serious issues like massive tearing, infection, and c-section--in some places the c-section rate is 40%. In Europe where midwife care is common and homebirth is also not unusual, the c-section rate is around 8-10%--so your choice in many parts of the US really does look a lot like Home Birth or C-section? But in this case--who knows.

These parents are either very dumb or else there is something to this story we don't know about. A vegan who doesn't know about soy formula in a non-breastfeeding culture (like much of the South and in many rural areas) could be in deep doo-doo.

To my mind, being a vegan in the South must be something like being a Jew in Teheran.

I'm guessing they failed to provide the child with a healthy daily serving of Jesus as well. Which in the American South is tantamount to malnutrition.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/08/child.starved/index.html

There's nothing mystical about it, A Nony Mouse: How about much lower rates of heart disease and cancer (as mentioned by Cook), along with less of the environmental devastation caused by the meat/dairy/egg industries, for a start? There's a lot of information out there in the great wide world about the benefits of eating vegan; if you cared to, you could educate yourself pretty easily. But I know, it's much easier and more fun to be anonymously snarky and sassy in a blog comments thread.

I won't dispute that eating meat is bad for the environment and that most Americans probably eat too much of it (along with too much of everything else). But where are you morons getting that being vegan/vegetarian is "healthier"--for the individual, that is--than being an omnivore? It sounds like unproven dogma to me. Are we supposed to believe you just because you say it's so? Obviously, eating nothing but charred steak and bacon is bad, but that's not the comparison that you're making. Most of the vegetarians I know are overweight, have low energy, and are at risk for getting diabetes because they eat so much starch and sugar. I see the vegan trend as being but one aspect of the pathological inability of our countrymen to have a healthy, well-adjusted attitude toward food and eating. Why else is a greater proportion of our population either on some weird kind of diet while also being more overweight than any other country on this planet? Everything in moderation!

rearing your children any different than you live your life doesn't need to be against the law, but i guess my first question would be How much did the baby weigh at birth?
a parent does notice weight difference. have you had a child, carried him or her around for months daily, then get to hold a younger baby...and say "Wow! so light! so tiny!"
i have. a parent must notice the drop in weight.
i think if nothing else, these people deserve to stay in prison till their reproductive systems wither and are no longer capable of creation. THAT is a just sentence.
and throw them a steak through the bars for breakfast.

I, too, am wondering where the midwife was...am thinking that they may have chosen an unassisted home birth---can't imagine any midwife missing this.

Our practice sees clients 5-6 times, an hour (at least) each time, AFTER the baby is born. Babies are weighed at 2, 4 and 6 weeks to ensure that they're gaining weight and thriving. If a breastfed baby isn't *at least* at their birthweight by 2 weeks (there can be a little weight loss since it takes 2-3 days postpartum for colostrum to change into breastmilk and come in fully) we refer to a IBC lactation consultant and set up extra appointments with them to ensure that the baby is getting what he/she needs.

Homebirth isn't for everyone. Those who do choose it have to take responsibility for their care, just as midwives take responsibility for educating and supporting them.

re: the case cited @43 + this one:

what's with all the African-american vegans in these cases? I don't think I've ever met a non-white vegan in my life (though I do live in lily-white Seattle), and here the only 2 times I've ever heard mention of black vegans is in these child neglect cases.

are black vegans somehow not part of the "vegan community" and don't get tips from other vegan parents about breastfeeding being okay? Are black vegans uncommon everywhere, or just in seattle? have white vegans ever been similarly prosecuted for starving their kids?

I think any couple that is so stupid that they starve their baby to DEATH, should be sterilized. I don't think it's possible to educate someone who is so dangerously ignorant. Talk about people that need to be thinned from the herd! And I don't care if they were vegan or not - there is no excuse for starving a baby to death.

Those who read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article will note that one the prosecution's witnesses is a nutritionist who has written a book on raising vegan kids. She testified that "the child's health may have been compromised by his diet, but he should still have been alive if fed enough food."

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/05/02/0503metvegan.html?imw=Y

Vegetarians make up 4% of the adult population in this country. 5% of that 4% are vegans. That means 0.2% of the adult population in the US is vegan. Not exactly world impacting numbers.

@43 and 48,

There's also this case that I remembered from when I used to live in New York. It's not apparent from the report but the parents were African-American. The kicker: The Swintons, who say they approach veganism as a religion, fed the child a diet of "ground nuts, fresh-squeezed fruit juices, herbal tea, beans, cod liver oil and flax seed oil," a complaint said.

Uh, yeah, cod liver oil isn't vegan. Idiots.

According to this story in the Atlanta paper, the jury included four vegetarians.
1. I bet the defendants thought they had a pretty good chance at acquittal with four vegetarians on the jury.
2. Those four probably didn't base their votes on some kneejerk reaction to the vegan philosophy, so the evidence must have been pretty bad, as Dan supposes.
3. As a Southerner, I'll try not to be offended by the widespread assumption here that all Southern jurors are bigoted and vengeful. Fulton County, Georgia might not be as hip as Seattle, but it's not exactly some backwater from Deliverance.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/05/09/0509metvegan.html?imw=Y (registration required)

@ 52: They could've been Macrobiotic, and just have had their diet a bit misrepresented. Or just dumb.

@ 48: There are quite a few black vegans, they are just less common in the Northwest since there are fewer blacks. I know a couple at my college in California.

I respect vegans for their choices to eat as they see fit. This case doesn't have anything to do with veganism: it is about starving a baby to death! The father's reaction of "we are going to jail for nothing" would indicate a lack of respect and understanding for what happened to his baby! Furthermore I have heard that he is complaining about the jail food! What I really want to know is why the grandparents didn't take any action. If the parents were such morons that they didn't know if they were starving the baby to death or not wouldn't someone have intervened? It is much more likely that there was a level of consciousness as to what they were doing, as hard as it is to imagine that anybody would do such a sick, sick thing. I don't even know that life in prison will make an impression on these folks!!!

I have a few problems with this report.

First, I don't see why this case is about veganism. A diet of only soy milk and apple juice is "vegan" in the same way a diet of only cheetos and bologne is omnivorous. The kid wasn't harmed by his diet's vegan character. He was harmed by the inappropriate and hyperlimited sources of nutrition.

Second, I'm no doctor and I certainly see that a soy milk and apple juice diet would be unhealthy for a baby, but it seems to me odd that a baby would starve to death so quickly, even if the diet was limited I'm inclined to think the kid died because he wasn't being fed enough period, whatever the source of his nourishment.

Oh, and I'm another vegan homo Slog reader.

@51:

By my calculations (assuming an oft-cited figure that doesn't sound crazy to me of 86 animals eaten per year by the average omni American), that would be about 600,000 vegans in the US not eating approximately 50 million animals. And that's just the vegans, not the vegetarians, and doesn't consider the suffering of however many animals are involved with providing the average person their eggs and dairy. Is my math wrong?

It doesn't seem insignificant to me at all.

And boy, those parents are dumbshits.

what idiots, who is stupid enough to starve there own child. Isn't being a vegan all about life choice yet these parents never gave there child a choice and he died for it. And I thought vegans were supposed to be healthy this shows that it's not

MSN I NIIPET
MSN

What IS the issue you people have against vegans??? I don't get it... or vegetarians in general... How do you feel about GAY people?
GAY VEGANS??? Black vegans....??? I get a LOT of flack from people about being vegan. Or for eating healthy food. It's like the assumption is
fast food/mass produced meat products have become
part of manifest destiny... or something.

I don't know why anyone would feel threatened
(and I do think that's the basis of all "issue;"
or biases... or homophobia... antisemitism...
sexisim...

Get the hell over yourselves already.
There are plenty of stupid ass carnivores out there who don't know how to raise children, too!