Raising a child is a privilege. Most people agree with that regardless of their position on abortion. Abortion is a decision, I believe, that should be made between a mother, father if applicable and a doctor. No one else.
Anyway, this isn’t about abortion, though I think Veronique Courjault should have gotten three abortions instead of having her kids.
Courjault, the infamous Frenchwoman who confessed to killing three of her own babies and hiding two of them in the freezer of her home in South Korea, now stands trial in Tours, France.
The trial began Tuesday. The judge will have to determine whether Courjault is psychologically impaired or was aware of her actions, which took place between 1999 and 2003. She faces life imprisonment.
Strangely enough, Courjault’s husband, Jean-Louis, said he wasn’t even aware his wife was pregnant between 1999 and 2003. He also said he didn’t know she was killing the babies he didn’t know existed. Confusing. He has, however, been cleared of any involvement.
BBC reports investigators said Jean-Louis, an engineer, was often away on business, and his wife managed to hide all three pregnancies from him. Crafty.
Jean-Louis did however stand by his wife during her imprisonment. Courjault was jailed in 2006 after confessing to the murders, and Jean-Louis visited his ailing wife in prison regularly. He says she is “psychologically distressed.” Till death, they will not part.
Jean-Louis arrived in the court room Tuesday and told AFP “I am very, very tense. I am here to support the woman I love,” according to BBC.
It was however Jean-Louis who alerted the police after finding two baby corpses in the freezer in July of 2006. He and his wife had been living in Seoul, but the woman’s French heritage has made this a particularly disturbing local case of infanticide.
According to Courjault’s confession, she strangled one baby in France in 1999, later burned its body in the chimney of her house. She then gave birth to two children between 2000 and 2003, alone, and suffocated the two newborns in Seoul.
But wait, it gets worse. After Jean-Louis alerted the police, they took a sample of his DNA and allowed him to travel back to France and meet his wife, who was vacationing there with their two sons, then-aged nine and 11. Yea, she has more kids.
Courjault’s two surviving children were quite young when she was pregnant with the other three babies. Maybe they didn’t notice or were too young to remember and ask their father. Maybe they asked their mother and she lied to them. Who knows.
At first the couple protested accusations, claiming they had no idea whose babies were discarded in their freezer.
But that didn’t last for long. DNA tests confirmed the bodies belonged to the couple. Later, Courjault confessed to the crime, citing her reason for the murders as not wanting to have more children. Like it’s their fault.
Following the admission, BBC reports South Korea requested the woman and her husband return to face questioning. The couple denied and opted to be tried in France.
Despite having a legal co-operation pact with South Korea, France does not, in most cases, extradite its citizens.
How a mother, in her right mind, can kill her children is beyond my comprehension.