Word: infantability
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Statistics released yesterday by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health show that whereas the mortality rate of white and Hispanic infants decreased between 1984 and 1985, the mortality rates of Black infants rose in 13 cities and towns across the state. This increase of deaths among infants under the age of one contrasts with the general decrease of national and state infant mortality of the past decade, said Department of Public Health spokesman John D. Stobierski...
Breaking a trend of the past decade, the infant mortality rate in the Boston area increased by 32 percent in 1985, a trend concentrated solely among Black infants, state officials said yesterday...
Whitehead, who did not accept her fee or sign over custody, took the child home with her. Three days later the Sterns collected the baby from the Whitehead home, but next morning Whitehead came by to beg for the infant's temporary return. After a two-hour encounter that both sides say was punctuated by emotional outbursts, the Sterns reluctantly agreed. "We thought she was suicidal," William Stern said. Two weeks later, when the Sterns came to her home, Whitehead told them she would not give up the child...
...following month, after obtaining a court order that required the infant to be handed over to them, the Sterns returned, accompanied by five policemen. In the confusion, Richard Whitehead slipped away with the child through a bedroom window. The Whiteheads then fled with the baby to Florida, where they were tracked down by a private detective hired by the Sterns. Authorities took the infant and returned her to New Jersey. Last September, Judge Sorkow gave temporary custody to the Sterns, but he allowed Mary Beth Whitehead to spend two hours twice a week with Baby M. on the neutral turf...
Still, one question must be answered. Whose child is Baby M. to be? Sympathies can be divided, the infant cannot. Solomon's threatened sword will no longer bring a simple answer. Deciding her fate will require all of Judge Sorkow's compassion, sense and ability to appraise clearly the issues involved. In March the baby will have her first birthday, almost certainly before she has her last name. It is unconscionable, unacceptable for her, but the questions her case raises are painful and daunting. When the opportunities that technology provides bring dilemmas in their wake, technology rarely provides answers...