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Life or Death? Confronting Today’s Infant Killings

Life or Death? Confronting Today’s Infant Killings

Last updated on: December 1, 2025 at 12:26 pm by Alice H. Murray

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Life or Death? Confronting Today’s Infant Killings 2025-12-01T12:26:11-05:00 Alice H. Murray

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Close up of baby with eyes closed being cradled in mother's arms

[Image by Iuliia Bondarenko from Pixabay]

News stories paint a horrifying picture of the failure to choose life for babies. Deuteronomy 3:19 directs the choice of life over death. The reason? So the individual and their children can have life. Unfortunately, whether well-thought out or not, selection of death for a baby does occur today and sometimes in a gruesome manner.

Illustration on green background with two buttons with red word on each. One says "DEAD" and the other says "ALIVE."

Deuteronomy 3:19 commands a choice between life and death [Image by Fathromi Ramdlon from Pixabay]

Infanticide – Failure To Choose Life For A Living Baby

The phrase “mother and child” likely evokes a beautiful image of a mother tenderly cradling her baby. While tender, a mother is seen as a fierce protector of her child. Nevertheless, in some instances, the very woman who gives birth to the child snatches that life away prematurely. In that case, a failure to choose life occurs.

The legal term infanticide describes such a killing. It derives from the Latin words “infans” (infant) and “caedere” (to kill) and means the deliberate killing of an infant. Given the crime’s name, the term indicates a very young child as the victim. Medical and legal definitions frequently set an age limitation for the victim, commonly under the age of one year.

Plain off-white tote bag on a gray background

Failure to choose life resulted in a Louisiana newborn’s body ending up in a tote bag [Photo by Brando Makes Branding on Unsplash]

Infant Killing In The News – Birth And Immediate Death

Someone killing their own newborn would shock most anyone. How barbaric! Heathens might have sacrificed babies to idols or mythical deities in the past, but who would act in this way today and why? A recent news story offers a glimpse at such a perpetrator and her motives. The murderer? The 14-year-old mother of the newborn. Her act served as a failure to choose life for her baby.

On November 21, 2025, the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s office received a report from a local hospital about a patient seeking medical assistance. The patient, a 14 year-old, told medical staff she gave birth at home. But she did not have a baby with her. Emergency responders sent to the girl’s home in Denham Springs, Louisiana uncovered a devastating sight—a deceased infant hidden in a tote bag with “extensive injuries to the neck.” According to medical personnel, the full-term infant was born alive and killed immediately after birth. The 14-year-old, now charged with first degree murder, had hid her pregnancy from her family. The baby no longer has life, and the ibrth mother’s has been ruined by her choice of death for her child.

Eye level view of pile of leaves outdoors with trees in the background and grass in the foreground

A dead baby buried under a pile of leaves evidences a failure to choose life [Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

Killed And Buried

As glamorous as the Big Apple might seem, unspeakable events unfold there too. On Thursday morning November 20, 2025, NYPD officers responded to a call about an unconscious baby found behind a public housing complex in Brooklyn. An infant boy’s body had been stuffed in a black bag and then buried under a pile of leaves. EMS pronounced the child deceased at the secne.

Although initially reported to the police as a newborn, the victim found behind a housing complex building is now believed to be between 5 and 7 months old. No arrests were immediately made, and an autopsy will be undertaken to determine the time and manner of death. Despite definitive details, the death is clearly suspicious. Who could choose death for a child that age and then hide his body? Again, the results of the perpetrator’s choice of death steals life from an innocent child and ruins the life of the perpetrator.

Gray dumpster with lid open sitting in an alley with other receptacles in sight down the way

A mother abandoning her newborn in a motel dumpster was a failure to choose life [Image by drewplaysdrums from Pixabay]

Thrown Away To Die

Thankfully, sometimes a parent may choose death for their baby, but the plan fails to succeed. Such was the case on the evening of September 2, 2025 when someone heard the sound of a baby’s cry coming from a dumpster at a Georgia motel. Responding officers from the Columbus Police Department discovered a newborn tied in a double-bagged trash bag. Still alive, the baby was transported to a local hospital for treatment. Authorities report the child spent five and a half to six hour in the dumpster, but was fine and merely needed additional oxygen.

An “extensive investigation” ensued with police utlimately arresting the baby’s 22-year-old mother. She admitted to having given birth to the child in the bathtub of her hotel room that morning and then placing him in the dumpster. According to her, no one was aware she was pregnant. The mother’s choice to leave her baby in a dumpster to die elevated her desire to keep her pregnancy secret over the precious life of her child. Her failure to choose life for her child leaves her facing criminal charges and her child with an awful birth story to scar his life.

Only Two Options

Deuteronomy 3:19 offers only two options from which to choose—life or death. Failure to choose life for a baby leads to devastating consequences for the one making the choice and for an innocent child. No matter who the perpetrator is, a birth parent or a stranger, the choice of death impacts society as a whole. Think of the grief over the child’s loss by family members, the gut-wrenching sight first responders view of a dead or dying baby, and the horror felt by members of the public who read about these ghastly incidents. Everyone faces a choice bettween life and death. Saying life is the choice isn’t enough. What can we do individually to foster the choice of life for those with babies in their lives?

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About Alice H. Murray

After 35 years as a Florida adoption attorney, Alice H. Murray now pursues a different path in the publishing industry. With a passion for writing, she is constantly creating with words. Her work includes contributions to several Short And Sweet books, The Upper Room, Chicken Soup For The Soul, Abba’s Lessons (from CrossRiver Media), and the Northwest Florida Literary Review. Alice is a regular contributor to GO!, a quarterly Christian magazine in the Florida Panhandle, and she has three devotions a month published online by Dynamic Women in Missions. Her devotions have also appeared in compilation devotionals such as Ordinary People Extraordinary God (July 2023) and Guideposts’ Pray A Word A Day, Vol. 2 (June 2023), pray a word for hope (September 2023), Too Amazing For Coincidence: Heavenly Interventions (August 2024), pray a word for strength (September 2024), and God’s Constant Presence: Held In His Hand, January 2025. Alice’s first book, The Secret of Chimneys, an annotated Agatha Christie mystery, was released in April 2023. Her adoption devotional, God Adopted Us First – Faith Lessons from an Adoption Attorney’s Adventures was published in October 2025. On a weekly basis, Alice posts on her blog about current events with a humorous point of view at aliceinwonderingland.wordpress.com. You can read more about the author here.

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