Some people like to torture babies. There, I said it. As difficult as it is to think about and discuss the unimaginable, we are doing the tiniest and most helpless human beings a grave injustice by pretending that no one could possibly do such a thing, that such evil cannot exist. It does, and it is in urgent need of being addressed.

Some of you may have heard about the recent identity disclosure of just a handful of these monsters, who have been charged with torturing a baby for months in the U.K. while the poor infant’s mother stood by and entertained herself with pornography on her computer, her baby’s screams filling the house. Her boyfriend, the vile thing responsible for most of the abuse, had been convicted previously for raping a two-year-old girl. He also enjoyed torturing animals, which is hardly a surprise. Shockingly, the baby had been visited approximately 60 times throughout its short life by medical personnel and police, and yet remained in the home until its violent, and preventable, death.

How is it possible that these people are out on the street? This is the real question we need to be asking ourselves. The man had previously raped a toddler. Common sense, instinct, emotion, humanness. These things all dictate that he should have been terminated. That, or locked up forever, with no chance of parole or escape. Nor should he be shuffled out of prison along with the budget cuts. Nor should he be set free so that prosecutors can make room for the millionaire drug lord whose money will bring resources to the state.

Some of you may be familiar with the despicable excuse for a mother in Iowa who shook and slammed her adopted son, only to be released on probation because the baby has supposedly recovered from his injuries. Does this seem fair? Should this woman not be sterilized? Should this woman not be locked up for a long time, for child endangerment, child abuse, assault, and attempted murder?

In Des Moines, 3-month-old Ethan Neiderbach is reported to now have minimal brain activity, a month and a half after being admitted to Blank Children’s Hospital with head trauma and a broken rib. This occurred as a result of multiple beatings by deadbeat parents who should have never been allowed to take the child home from the hospital in the first place, because he was born with a controlled substance in his tiny body.

Anyone with a heart, a brain, and a conscience should be shaken to the core when they stop to think about possibility of a baby or young child living life in a violent home. It could be, and probably is, happening right here in Ames. It certainly is in Des Moines. Definitely in more places than one can imagine around Iowa. How about the entire United States? How many babies are being tortured right now? How many toddlers are being raped? How many children are becoming victims of child pornography? Here’s a statistic: According to Police Chief Magazine, a full six percent of victims of violent sexual assault (i.e. rape and sodomy) are infants.

Preventing such evil should be priority number one for us as a society. If the justice system as it currently operates cannot keep these monsters off the street, perhaps a massive paradigm shift is needed in the way the legal system deals with other human beings who are just not right. Sterilization and/or swift termination, administered by authorities, of anyone who rapes and/or tortures a baby would be a step in the right direction. We need to institutionalize new punishment processes and focus on prevention, which is another way of saying that we need to find a way to banish the term ‘repeat offender’ from our legal vocabulary when it comes to babies and children.

– Elizabeth Elwakeil