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‘No More Baby’
by Jay Nordlinger September 19, 2016 National Review
In Ohio, a college student killed her baby, immediately after the baby was born. The student was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Cases like this one cause many of us to think about abortion. Is the murder of a newborn really so different from an abortion? Is it so different that it should land you in jail, for life? While an abortion is defended — even celebrated — as a right?
I will return to this in a moment. First, the recent case.
Emile Weaver comes from Clarington, Ohio, a dot on the Ohio River, across from West Virginia. Her first name is pronounced “Emily.” She went to Muskingum University, in New Concord. The institution is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
A teenage refugee from Poland, Richard Pipes, went there. (He became a leading historian of Russia, and one of our top public intellectuals.) Muskingum’s most famous graduate is John Glenn.
Emile joined a sorority, Delta Gamma Theta — “a sisterhood dedicated to love and loyalty.”
In 2014, Emile got pregnant. She knew she was pregnant — she was even tested for it — but she was “in denial,” as they say. She denied the pregnancy to others, and she denied it to herself.
Here is how she would put it: “I said no so many times that, in my mind, none of this was happening.”
Her sorority sisters suspected she was pregnant. Emile gained weight, naturally, and she tried to disguise her pregnancy: by wearing baggy clothing and holding a pillow or stuffed animal in front of her stomach.
Emile behaved in ways that suggested she wanted to kill her baby. The judge would say, “You tried over and over to take that baby’s life.” Emile drank. She smoked pot. She played dodgeball. She took a dietary supplement that can induce premature labor.
Here is a big question — maybe the biggest of the case: Why didn’t Emile get an abortion? It is a mystery. One day, Emile and her boyfriend set out for an abortion clinic. But the weather was bad and some of the roads were closed. They headed back. Emile never did abort the baby.
As I say, a mystery.
Unaborted, the baby came due. The date was April 22, 2015, and the time was around 8 in the morning. Emile went to a bathroom of the sorority house. There, she gave birth to a girl.
Another sorority member, Moriah Saer, heard sounds coming from the bathroom. They were “like a dying cat,” she would testify. Moriah heard “three or four cries,” each lasting a few seconds. She figured that someone was on her phone, “playing a game or something.”
Later, she wished she had broken the door down.
At some point, Emile went to the kitchen to get a knife. She cut the baby’s umbilical cord. Then she put her in a trash bag and took her out to the trash.
Emile texted her boyfriend: “No more baby.” “What?” he said. She repeated, “No more baby.” “How do you know?” “Taken care of. Don’t worry about it.” He rejoined, “I would like to know how you killed my kid.”
DNA testing would prove that the baby was not this guy’s kid. It was another guy’s kid. But paternity is not a relevant detail in this case. The environment of a modern campus is free-flowing.
The bathroom at Delta Gamma Theta was a mess. The toilet was spattered with blood. Apparently, there had been a feminine-hygiene problem. The house manager sent out a text to all the sisters: Whoever was responsible had better clean up the mess. “It looks like a murder scene.”
That night, four of the sisters went out for ice cream. They talked about Emile. Has she really been pregnant? How about all that blood in the bathroom? Could she have given birth this morning?
One of the sisters had a suggestion: They should check out the trash bin. Others thought the idea was silly. But two of them actually went and checked.
They found the bag sitting by itself. It was heavy. And tied tight. They tore a hole in it. And saw a foot.
The sisters called the director of Muskingum’s Greek system, who called the police.
There was an autopsy — which showed that the baby had died of asphyxiation. The corpse was handed over to Emile’s family for burial.
She did something interesting, Emile did: She named the baby. “Addison Grace Weaver.” She wrote letters to the baby. She picked out a headstone. There was a funeral.
Not until the funeral, she would tell the court, did the enormity of her act hit her. Emile was looking at the casket — a tiny casket. And she knew, with full force, what she had done.
She was arrested and held on a million-dollar bond. Her trial lasted four days. It took the jury barely an hour to convict her. The sentence was up to the judge, Mark C. Fleegle.
Emile said, “I stand before you a broken-down woman, asking for forgiveness and mercy. Words cannot express how sorry I am to my beautiful daughter Addison.”
Judge Fleegle did not believe her remorse. He thought she was insincere. He cited one of the texts she had sent her boyfriend on the day of the murder: “Taken care of.” That was certainly true, he commented. The baby “was an inconvenience, and you took care of it.”
He could have sentenced Emile to life in prison with a chance for parole after 20 years. That’s what she and her attorney, R. Aaron Miller, were hoping for. Instead, he gave her the maximum: life without parole.
“I think Judge Fleegle hit it out of the park,” said the prosecutor, D. Michael Haddox. “We feel justice has been served for Addison Grace Weaver.”
Aaron Miller has filed an appeal.
A word about remorse. Judge Fleegle, as you’ve heard, found in Emile a woman without remorse. Miller asks, “What does remorse look like? What happens if you have someone who keeps everything inside and is just eaten alive by what’s happened, but they don’t cry, they don’t collapse? That should be the least important thing, in my opinion — the least important factor — in any criminal case.”
I agree.
Miller tells me that Emile’s father died when she was quite young — about eight. She was taken to counseling and would not talk to the counselor. Miller suspects she turned into a young adult “who does not express her emotions.”
I think of beggars I have seen on the streets of New York, and the Gypsies I have seen all over Europe. They are remarkable performers. I have seen them “onstage” and off. Onstage, they are pitiable, pathetic — sometimes heartrending. Their faces contorted in pain and misery. A minute later, they are on break, having a cigarette or talking on their cellphone. Countenances are utterly changed.
In courtroom photos and video clips, Emile Weaver often has a confused, hunted look. Or so it seems to me.
Also, Judge Fleegle stressed how selfish Emile was (which she herself admitted). She wrote a letter to the court, pleading for mercy. Here was Fleegle’s judgment on the letter: “In those four paragraphs, you mention ‘I’ 15 times. Once again, it’s all about you.”
What in our culture — what in modern America — would have taught her that “it” was “about” anything other than herself? Haven’t we been taught to put ourselves — our own needs, our own gratification, our own future — before everything? Isn’t that the (modern) American credo?
When you get an abortion, whom are you doing it for?
by Jay Nordlinger September 19, 2016 National Review
In Ohio, a college student killed her baby, immediately after the baby was born. The student was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Cases like this one cause many of us to think about abortion. Is the murder of a newborn really so different from an abortion? Is it so different that it should land you in jail, for life? While an abortion is defended — even celebrated — as a right?
I will return to this in a moment. First, the recent case.
Emile Weaver comes from Clarington, Ohio, a dot on the Ohio River, across from West Virginia. Her first name is pronounced “Emily.” She went to Muskingum University, in New Concord. The institution is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
A teenage refugee from Poland, Richard Pipes, went there. (He became a leading historian of Russia, and one of our top public intellectuals.) Muskingum’s most famous graduate is John Glenn.
Emile joined a sorority, Delta Gamma Theta — “a sisterhood dedicated to love and loyalty.”
In 2014, Emile got pregnant. She knew she was pregnant — she was even tested for it — but she was “in denial,” as they say. She denied the pregnancy to others, and she denied it to herself.
Here is how she would put it: “I said no so many times that, in my mind, none of this was happening.”
Her sorority sisters suspected she was pregnant. Emile gained weight, naturally, and she tried to disguise her pregnancy: by wearing baggy clothing and holding a pillow or stuffed animal in front of her stomach.
Emile behaved in ways that suggested she wanted to kill her baby. The judge would say, “You tried over and over to take that baby’s life.” Emile drank. She smoked pot. She played dodgeball. She took a dietary supplement that can induce premature labor.
Here is a big question — maybe the biggest of the case: Why didn’t Emile get an abortion? It is a mystery. One day, Emile and her boyfriend set out for an abortion clinic. But the weather was bad and some of the roads were closed. They headed back. Emile never did abort the baby.
As I say, a mystery.
Unaborted, the baby came due. The date was April 22, 2015, and the time was around 8 in the morning. Emile went to a bathroom of the sorority house. There, she gave birth to a girl.
Another sorority member, Moriah Saer, heard sounds coming from the bathroom. They were “like a dying cat,” she would testify. Moriah heard “three or four cries,” each lasting a few seconds. She figured that someone was on her phone, “playing a game or something.”
Later, she wished she had broken the door down.
At some point, Emile went to the kitchen to get a knife. She cut the baby’s umbilical cord. Then she put her in a trash bag and took her out to the trash.
Emile texted her boyfriend: “No more baby.” “What?” he said. She repeated, “No more baby.” “How do you know?” “Taken care of. Don’t worry about it.” He rejoined, “I would like to know how you killed my kid.”
DNA testing would prove that the baby was not this guy’s kid. It was another guy’s kid. But paternity is not a relevant detail in this case. The environment of a modern campus is free-flowing.
The bathroom at Delta Gamma Theta was a mess. The toilet was spattered with blood. Apparently, there had been a feminine-hygiene problem. The house manager sent out a text to all the sisters: Whoever was responsible had better clean up the mess. “It looks like a murder scene.”
That night, four of the sisters went out for ice cream. They talked about Emile. Has she really been pregnant? How about all that blood in the bathroom? Could she have given birth this morning?
One of the sisters had a suggestion: They should check out the trash bin. Others thought the idea was silly. But two of them actually went and checked.
They found the bag sitting by itself. It was heavy. And tied tight. They tore a hole in it. And saw a foot.
The sisters called the director of Muskingum’s Greek system, who called the police.
There was an autopsy — which showed that the baby had died of asphyxiation. The corpse was handed over to Emile’s family for burial.
She did something interesting, Emile did: She named the baby. “Addison Grace Weaver.” She wrote letters to the baby. She picked out a headstone. There was a funeral.
Not until the funeral, she would tell the court, did the enormity of her act hit her. Emile was looking at the casket — a tiny casket. And she knew, with full force, what she had done.
She was arrested and held on a million-dollar bond. Her trial lasted four days. It took the jury barely an hour to convict her. The sentence was up to the judge, Mark C. Fleegle.
Emile said, “I stand before you a broken-down woman, asking for forgiveness and mercy. Words cannot express how sorry I am to my beautiful daughter Addison.”
Judge Fleegle did not believe her remorse. He thought she was insincere. He cited one of the texts she had sent her boyfriend on the day of the murder: “Taken care of.” That was certainly true, he commented. The baby “was an inconvenience, and you took care of it.”
He could have sentenced Emile to life in prison with a chance for parole after 20 years. That’s what she and her attorney, R. Aaron Miller, were hoping for. Instead, he gave her the maximum: life without parole.
“I think Judge Fleegle hit it out of the park,” said the prosecutor, D. Michael Haddox. “We feel justice has been served for Addison Grace Weaver.”
Aaron Miller has filed an appeal.
A word about remorse. Judge Fleegle, as you’ve heard, found in Emile a woman without remorse. Miller asks, “What does remorse look like? What happens if you have someone who keeps everything inside and is just eaten alive by what’s happened, but they don’t cry, they don’t collapse? That should be the least important thing, in my opinion — the least important factor — in any criminal case.”
I agree.
Miller tells me that Emile’s father died when she was quite young — about eight. She was taken to counseling and would not talk to the counselor. Miller suspects she turned into a young adult “who does not express her emotions.”
I think of beggars I have seen on the streets of New York, and the Gypsies I have seen all over Europe. They are remarkable performers. I have seen them “onstage” and off. Onstage, they are pitiable, pathetic — sometimes heartrending. Their faces contorted in pain and misery. A minute later, they are on break, having a cigarette or talking on their cellphone. Countenances are utterly changed.
In courtroom photos and video clips, Emile Weaver often has a confused, hunted look. Or so it seems to me.
Also, Judge Fleegle stressed how selfish Emile was (which she herself admitted). She wrote a letter to the court, pleading for mercy. Here was Fleegle’s judgment on the letter: “In those four paragraphs, you mention ‘I’ 15 times. Once again, it’s all about you.”
What in our culture — what in modern America — would have taught her that “it” was “about” anything other than herself? Haven’t we been taught to put ourselves — our own needs, our own gratification, our own future — before everything? Isn’t that the (modern) American credo?
When you get an abortion, whom are you doing it for?
