How Is This Even Possible?

Yesterday, I wrote about dumb things reporters say and editors approve. Well, there’s not a lock on stupidity to just editors and reporters. Here’s a case in point.

New Zealand police say they have charged the Samoan mother of a girl born during an international flight for abandoning her baby on the plane. [That’s terrible, really is.]

Detective inspector Mark Gutry says the unnamed Samoan woman faces up to seven years in prison for abandonment under charges laid Wednesday, and the same term for allegedly failing to inform air officials her pregnancy was so advanced. [Okay, this woman has some serious issues, obviously, and deserves either jail time or mental health treatment—one or the other, or both.]

Cleaners found the baby in a toilet garbage bin on a Pacific Blue flight from Samoa to Auckland. [Did no one hear her giving birth? Really? Have you ever sat within 5 rows of an airplane restroom? You hear everything that goes on in there! How did no one hear this!]

The infant was located lying amid bloodied paper towels after the woman had left the airplane. [This breaks my heart. How about yours?]

But, here’s the really, really, really, did I say really, stupid part. Again, word-for-word what is reported and happened: The child was later reunited with its mother, but welfare officials are still deciding whether the mother should get long-term custody.

Reunited with its mother! Are you kidding me? She gave birth on an airplane. In an airplane's restroom! She didn’t tell anyone. Left the child for dead in a garbage bin. Now, police have returned the child to her! And, they are having to decide whether or not she should have long-term custody of the child? What’s to decide? How long before she abandons the child again? Or, this time, worse!