with your equating the situation to one in which a mother killed a child for being POC or LGBT.

When we talk about disabilities, we cannot discount the catastrophic effect that a profoundly disabled child will often have on a family. While nothing explains or mitigates the horror of her murder of her son, it sounds like it was a foregone conclusion that this teen mother from an abusive home herself didn't have the ability to care for that boy.

None of us who has not experienced it can understand the constant, back breaking, mind numbing, future demolishing demands that are placed on mothers of profoundly disabled children (and it is often mothers alone, because statistically the disability puts such strains on the marriage that the parents divorce.) We have no system that assists them in caring for that child.

Because of my profession, I know many such mothers. They are heroes and I can't begin to understand how they do what they do. There is no surprise that an abused teen couldn't hack it.

The father and grandmother had custody before. Then, for whatever inexplicable reason, fought to get the child back.

We HAVE to equate the disabled to POC and LGBT. If we give murderous parents an out, they'll take it.

She was a teenager. We don't give life to teens.

Anyway, I"m not arguing. Just saying that I hope she has found her own forgiveness (mine isn't important). And I hope that she has moved to a place where she can be a helpful and productive member of society. It sounds like she has.

thinks her son was less important than others because he was disabled. Maybe I've missed your point.

She committed a heinous crime when she was a teenager. By my calculations, she would be 40+ years old now. She has served her sentence, she has shown remorse, she has worked very hard to improve herself and wants to find a way to help others.

Yes, she should be forgiven. The person she is now is not the person she was. She will live with what she did for the rest of her life.

There is nothing she can do that will bring her son back. Further punishment or incarceration will not bring her son back.

There was no reference to parole in the article. It just said that her sentence was reduced from 50 years to 20 years and they let her out a few months early to start her graduate program. So it would seem that she served her time.

There's no question that she committed a heinous crime. Lots of people commit heinous crimes and they are sentenced to jail for X number of years, and then they are released. Unlike prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, you can't hold people in jail forever. And releasing her at the end of her sentence doesn't excuse or condone what she did.

So, here's a woman who might actually make a difference in the years she has remaining. Are we supposed to exclude her from constructively participating in society? Consider this situation in contrast to the release of people who have committed equally heinous crimes and who Will struggle to find work and may not contribute in any meaningful way after their release.

i can't imagine being a teen doing it.

she fought to get him back and won, just to kill him.

The situation was nowhere near to what you portray

"Shit happens" Seriously? We're talking about a child being brutally murdered here

...until you've walked a mile in some else's shoes. In most cases, a few steps would be more than I could bear.

TYY

if a parent killed their child for being LGBT?

Disability rights advocates such as myself understand that life with disabled kids is hard. That's why we fight hard for support services, unlike most special needs parents who pay lipservice to the concept before turning around, voting GOP and moaning about cuts.