Abductions and Loss

I feel very frustrated each time I see news coverage of the abduction of an infant. The media’s portrayal of the woman who takes the baby creates an unsympathetic and inaccurate view to the public of women who have suffered a miscarriage.

Infant abduction is a very polarizing crime–the babies are so helpless, hard to identify, and innocent. The public–as it should–feels no concern whatsoever about anything but returning the baby to its mother.

In this extreme of villany, police and the media stereotype and generalize the assailant at will.

In this case, ABC News aired the following list of attributes of an infant abductor:

• A woman of childbearing age.
• Overweight.
• Often lives in the community where abduction took place.
• Frequently says she lost a baby.

There are so many things that are wrong with this, I can barely contain my rage enough to type.

First, in their own broadcast, ABC reports there have been 13 abductions from hospitals since 2000. This is frightfully little data to use in a profile and even though it is gleaned from hospital abductions, the public will use it when they think of any abduction, even though the profile may not fit.

Even more than the ridiculous addition of “overweight,” I am distressed by the movement from “woman who has lost a baby,” which was the profile descriptor in the Missouri abduction last year, to “says she lost a baby.” Now we’ve shifted from a woman suffering from a post-partum and grief induced psychosis to a woman who will use a loss as an excuse for her criminal behavior. The very wording of this element of the profile suggests both that she has lied about it (when very likely she has NOT lied about it) and that she believes it is a justification for what she has done.

Both of these negative suggestions affect the community of women who have miscarried. The first undermines the power of our grief. To assume straight off that women are lying about a very real condition that affects our behavior is to minimize the anguish we endure before an already insensitive public. The second insinuates that we feel we are “owed” something due to our loss, and that we can go steal a baby with some warped sense of vindication.

I do not believe these profiles are useful in locating an infant abductor, and they certainly do harm. Women who have lost babies in the town where an abduction has taken place wonder when the knock will come on their door, and feel the negative association with their loss and the suggested lack of rationality and control.

What needs to happen instead is a solid list of information that has actually led to the recovery of babies:

• Noticing the sudden appearance of a baby and asking about it. (While this seems obvious, recognizing this scenario is what has led to ALL the recovered abductions. The women can’t help but show off their newborn but have mangled explanations for its arrival.)
• Actual descriptions of assailants rather than profiles (In every case, they had people who could detail the appearance of the abductor–somebody saw her. In this last one, they had video. I fail to understand the justification of calling them all ”overweight” when we can see what this one ACTUALLY is.)
• Projections about where the assailant might have gone based on how long it’s been and what highways/destinations seem most likely.
• Reminders that the family and friends of the abductor are almost always the ones who can realize what has happened and help return the stolen infant.

Women in our miscarriage community and the general public have a common goal: to assist, when we can, in helping locate the infant. We women who have already endured a loss do not, however, have to stand by and be villified and maligned in the process.