Airport screening officials must have had the shock of their lives when they sent a mother's handbag through the x-ray machine the other day. The scanner showed a 5-month-old baby boy! Let me repeat this so it will sink in: someone actually thought it was a good idea to put an infant in a purse and send him through airport scanners.
Folks, Paris Hilton carries her dog in a handbag. You do NOT, under any circumstances, put a baby in one! And yet, that's what airport officials say an Egyptian man and his wife did in order to smuggle their baby.
I've been wracking my brain, trying to summon some sympathy for these people, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it's not working out well.
The parents are now in deep trouble in the United Arab Emirates, where they were first stopped by airport officials because their baby didn't have any official documents. According to police, the couple allegedly waited for a shift change, stashed their poor child in the bag, and tried to get into the country once again, apparently thinking that no one would notice the living, breathing human being inside mom's purse.
Stuffing him in a handbag is, of course, the worst part of all of this -- I don't even want to think about what could have happened to the poor little guy. But the fact is, if all of this is true, they've treated this baby like a non-human from the get-go. The mere fact that they tried to fly him into the country without the proper paperwork means they were treating him more like a piece of luggage than a child. Here in America most moms apply for a birth certificate and a Social Security card before we even leave the hospital! And they did nothing?
Parents shouldn't have to be reminded that a baby is just as important as someone who can speak for themselves, but every day we see those parents-to-be who think that they will be able to live their lives exactly as they did before the birth. Let this be your big, fat wake-up call: that baby is a human being, with wants and needs. You can't just stuff them in your purse when they get annoying.
What do you make of this whole baby smuggling scandal?
Image via Joe Shlabotnik/Flickr
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Comments 50
I'm sure we will hear more as more details come out because I can't imagine they actually though that it would work, so they had to be in some deperate situation to do it.
I'm thinking the real question is why they thought it necessary.
This article is so arrogant and judgemental. The last paragraph was especially harsh. The fact is we have no idea why they were trying to smuggle their child accross the border and although her actions seem rash, dangerous, and maybe even not fully thought out it doesn't mean she was seeing her baby as a "non-human" Have you ever been outside of the US? for that matter have you ever been anywhere, even in the US that might call for desperate measures, crawl out from under your pamperd suburban rock, not everyone lives like you or has access to what you have access to.
meh. they obviously had a reason, i doubt they just did it for shits and giggles. they must have been desperate, and it wouldn't hurt a baby to be in a large bag. i think assuming that they don't see their baby as a human b/c they don't have the documents is a pretty big leap. obviously they wanted their baby with them enough to try to smuggle him in, i think that points in the opposite direction of treating him as a nonhuman. this article is garbage, nothing more than sensationalizing these parents' situation by crying child abuse and making judgments and jumping to concluions before u know anything about them or their story. if ur supposed to be a journalist, how about doing some research and get the whole story, and maybe learn a little about the country ur reporting on before u bash people based on how things work in ur little bubble. i would hope a journalist reporting on international events would be a bit more educated.