Caylee Marie Anthony

In October of 1970, the people of Central Illinois were shocked by the senseless murder of two young girls – Theresa Gorsuch and Rebecca Staley.  Both girls were killed by Theresa’s older brother, Todd Gorsuch, who was 14 years old at the time.  Todd was later tried as an adult and was subsequently found guilty of murder by a jury.

I was in 8th grade at the time of the murders.  It seemed as though everyone in school knew the details about what happened.  Double murders were rare in those days.  In the upper level classes, teachers openly discussed what happened and warned the students to be careful about whom they associated with.

I thought about the Todd Gorsuch case last week when a jury in Florida returned a not guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony trial.  Casey had been on trial for allegedly murdering her daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony. 

Prior to the not guilty verdict, I had seen some headlines about the trial but didn’t take the time to read anything about the case.  However, after seeing how outraged the reporters and observers were about the verdict, I read up on the facts of the case.

Here’s a short summary of the evidence that was presented in the case, as reported on abcnews.com:

Prosecutors claimed that Casey Anthony killed her daughter by drugging Caylee with chloroform and suffocating her with duct tape over her mouth and nose.

Prosecutors built a case of circumstantial evidence that documented how Casey Anthony moved in with her boyfriend Tony Lazzaro shortly after Caylee disappeared, partied at clubs, took part in a “hot body” contest, and got the phrase “bella vita” — or beautiful life — tattooed on her shoulder in the month after Caylee died and while her mother was pretending she was still alive.

As her lies unraveled, it became apparent that Casey Anthony had created a fictional world in which she made up a job at Universal Studios and a dozen people who were friends, co-workers, lovers, babysitters and even Caylee’s playmates.

Defense attorney Jose Baez said that the truth was that Caylee had accidentally drowned in the family pool and instead of reporting her death, Casey ‘went into a dark corner, to pretend as if nothing was wrong.’

The prosecution was hampered in its case by the fact that Caylee’s body, found in a swamp six months after she disappeared, was so badly deteriorated that the medical examiner could not determine exactly how she died.  Caylee’s cause of death was listed as a ‘homicide of undetermined means.’

After the jury came back with a not guilty verdict, people who had been paying attention to the trial were outraged.  Here are some quotes from the article on abcnews.com:

Outside the courtroom, spectators screamed ‘Lord!’ as they learned of the not guilty ruling.  People comforted each other and cried, one man remarking that Casey Anthony should leave town because she’s not welcome in Orlando.

One woman said, ‘[The verdict] is going to make millions of people think they can get away with killing their child…That isn’t a good depiction of what our justice system is like or should be.’

In New York’s Times Square, the reaction to the verdict was emotional.  ‘I’m sick, you know, she killed a little girl,’ said Susan McDougal.  ‘So she gets off and she goes home and maybe has another baby that she can abuse and hurt.’

The night of the verdict, Nancy Grace, a former prosecuting attorney from Georgia, scored the highest ratings ever for her legal commentary show on CNN.  Grace had previously followed the trial on her show and had made it clear to her audience that she thought Casey Anthony was guilty of murdering her daughter.

Marcia Clark, one of the prosecuting attorneys in the O.J. Simpson case declared that the verdict was “more shocking” than the not guilty verdict in the Simpson case.

From what I read, it appears as though the prosecuting attorneys failed to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Casey Anthony was guilty of what she was charged with: felony murder, first degree murder (premeditated), second degree murder, aggravated manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse.  It appears as though there may have been sufficient evidence to prove her guilty of negligent homicide, but she wasn’t charged with that particular offense.

What struck me when I read about the case was that if Casey Anthony had chosen to “legally” kill her daughter 5 minutes before she was born, nobody in the media would have blinked an eye.  In fact, I expect that Nancy Grace and Marcia Clark would have defended Anthony’s right to “terminate” the life of her child only minutes before her birth.

The same quotes from the above mentioned women could be repeated when describing the “right” of a woman to terminate the life of her unborn child:  “[The law] is going to make millions of people think they can get away with killing their child…That isn’t a good depiction of what our justice system is like or should be” and “So she gets off and she goes home and maybe has another baby that she can abuse and hurt.”

So here’s my question: What’s the difference between Casey Anthony and a woman who disposes of her child with a partial birth abortion?  The difference is 2 years and 10 months (Caylee’s age when she died).  Another difference is that there are pictures and videos of Caylee which made her “more human” to people than an unborn child.

Every year in America, under the color of law, over one million women terminate the lives of their unborn children.  Unfortunately, none of those children have anyone in the mainstream media who is willing to stand up for their God-given right to life.

Yes, we should be outraged by what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony.  But we should also be outraged by what happens to every child who is murdered in the womb of his or her mother.

The United States of America has been on a downward spiral ever since our Supreme Court legalized Abortion in 1973.  We are never going to be able to restore our country to greatness until we put laws into place that protect the most innocent among us – our unborn children.

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