"My observation is that (the twins' birth mother) was one of the most confident and centred people that I have met," she said.
She described her partner as being an extremely generous and loving person before she fell pregnant.
"She (the twins' birth mother) always said that she had a big heart filled with love," the woman said, weeping.
"I find (now) that she doesn't have the same ability to love that she used to and the same capacity to, I guess, embrace differences and issues as a couple or as a team."
She said the pair lost their lives functioning as a couple, becoming mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children.
Dr Armellin's barrister Kim Burke said the pair's loss of their lives as a couple was commonly experienced by parents across Australia.
"I suggest to you you have described the situation nearly every couple in Australia suffers in the circumstances where they are no longer in a single relationship with each other but they've the burden of a child or children."
Thankgoodness someone is talking sense in there.
5 comments:
shakes head sadly
As someone who has worked for social services (albeit briefly) where my job was to work out whether people were emotionally able to continue looking after their children, I'm surprised no one is asking this question here.
Yes, it might be reasonable to accuse your doctor of a mistake, or perhaps even of incompetence (not the same thing). But to blame him for the human condition?
Surely you folks all realize that what you're complaining about is a legal strategy, which may or may not bear any relationship to reality?
I realize it's more titillating to make this about the plaintiff's sexual orientation, and to imagine there's something new and profound here - but really it's simply about lawyers and things that everybody already knows.
On the contrary I thought that (for the most part) we've been avoiding explicit reference to the plaintiff's sexual orientation, or indeed practice. Whether this stuff would be getting the same attention from us, or indeed the newspapers, in the case of a heterosexual couple is certainly worth contemplating, but I don't take this as a veto on discussing the matter once it's already being aired.
I agree that the claims being made are part of a legal strategy. But does it follow that they are merely part of a legal strategy? If they really do think this stuff (or something like it) then I think that makes them a fair target. To the extent that these statements are theatre, and not sincerely put forward ... I think that just shifts the target to the implied audience, or the zeitgeist, or whatever. Clearly someone hopes that such arguments will be effective. The barrister's excellent statement quoted by Michael suggests they may have miscalculated. If so, I shed no tears on behalf of the plaintiff's strategy ...
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