According to a report by Time magazine that was referenced by Yahoo News, eight infants were recently found buried in the gardens of two separate homes in France. Six were found at the current home of the mother, while the other two were found by the owners of her previous residence, while digging a pool in the backyard. This is the fifth instance of multiple infanticides reported in France since 2003.
In trying to determine why these deaths are taking place, experts say the women are suffering from what is called pregnancy denial. Michel Delcroix, a former gynecologist and a court expert in one trial of another mother guilty of infanticide, claims it is “a quasi-schizophrenic condition in which women either don’t realize or cannot accept that they are with child. The psychological denial of their pregnancy is so strong they refuse to believe it even when it confronts them as reality.” Delcroix goes on to say, “These women are so convinced pregnancy is impossible that once the child they never wanted arrives, they don’t accept it as real, and get rid of it to restore order to what they believe is non-pregnant reality.”
I know there are mental disorders that can cause people to be out of touch with reality. However, I’m at a loss to understand how someone can go through what pregnancy brings with it, give birth to a child, kill it and bury it, and carry on as if nothing has happened. It is incredible to consider someone can function normally in the other routines of life, yet act in such a bizarre manner when it comes to a newborn infant.
Yet, such a practice is not new. In the Old Testament, we read of people offering their children as human sacrifices, such as what King Manasseh of Judah did (2 Kings 21:6). In other cultures, if the gender wasn’t what the father desired, the child would be left exposed to natural elements to die. The Twelve Tables of Roman law obligated the family patriarch to put to death a child that was visibly deformed. Society at large has not acted nobly regarding cherishing and nurturing new human life.
Rejecting the will of God, modern society doesn’t act nobly regarding life either. A child is often aborted before birth, killed at birth, or abused after birth, with little thought or conviction of conscience by some today. This is the consequence of allowing sin to be the dominate influence in one’s life. If you reject the principles of Scripture, the depravity of sin is all that’s left, and sin knows no limits to how far it will go. “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper...and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Rom. 1:28, 32).
There are many who have been deceived by a sinful world. This is why we must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world for the sake of truth (Matt. 5:13-16). We must not become complacent to sin, or indifferent to how it influences others. Without the example of our lives, without our voice for the gospel, how will those around us know there’s something better to live by, something greater to live for? If we become anaesthetized to sin around us, we will be overcome by sin as well. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).
Robert Johnson
