The motive behind Jovanovic’s actions was reportedly her fear that motherhood would jeopardise her professional career as a lawyer for a prestigious car brand.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      Sounds pretty awful, but remember that prosecutors don’t have ESP. So “prosecutors claim she didn’t want to jeopardize her career” is not the same as “she didn’t want to jeopardize her career”.

      It’s not like she wrote in her diary “Today I killed my newborn because I thought it would interfere with work.”

      • Dud@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yea I don’t think many are as focused on the motivation part as much as the lady defenestrating a fuckin baby.

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          That’s fair. Pure unfounded speculation: I wonder if there was an element of post partum psychosis.

          • Ulvain@sh.itjust.works
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            My guess: didn’t know she was pregnant until very late. Options were dwindling or nil. She was completely and insanely career obsessed and career-anxious.

            Arrives the last month or two. Pregnancy is hard to ignore then, but it was probably daily terror and panic as she didn’t know what to do. She probably felt cornered, insane with anxiety and barely holding it together in a field that doesn’t give you any room for error.

            By the time she has to deliver, her brain is likely already pure soup from the anxiety, obsessing with how she can’t handle it, how it can’t be happening, how she can’t be a mother, doesn’t want to be a mother, can’t - not doesn’t want to, but can’t! CAN’T you understand?! - stop to work.

            So she delivers secretly. By this point she’s too far gone, mentally a complete mess, insane, unstable.

            So she kills her newborn.

            Not as a heinous premeditated act of hatred, violence and mischief, but as a completely insane act of post partum depression, psychosis, work related anxiety and sheer craziness.

            She didn’t choke or shake the baby then dug a grave at night - she didn’t do some elaborate crime and elaborate body-hiding shenanigans.

            She threw. The. Baby. Out. Her. Own. Window.

            And she’s a lawyer.

            There was no attempt whatsoever to not get caught or to act surreptitiously.

            Just pure terror, psychosis and a horrible, tragic impulse that ended up terminating a new life and ruining another.

            Sorry i got carried away lyrically lol.

          • coolteathatisgreen@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            " Hoech claimed Jovanovic was unaware of her pregnancy and overwhelmed by the sudden birth."
            How can one unaware of her pregnancy until give birth ?

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              You think you would notice missing 9 periods, having your entire nipple area change color and produce milk, need to go pee every thirty minutes, feet swelling, rapid temperature changes, focus problems, food cravings, vomiting for three months, odor sensitivities, not being able to tie your shoes, weird fast reflexes, urge to take on home repair projects, and skin changes.

              But I am positive someone here will tell me about their friend’s cousin former yoga instructor’s roommate who didn’t notice for some reason and act like this is the norm

                • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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                  2 months ago

                  No joke I have a friend of mine who just went to sleep one night and woke up with a baby covered in blood crying on her bed, umbilical chord still attached… Glad she doesn’t roll over in her sleep

  • LouNeko@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    As fucked up as this is, there’s so little information given by this article that I can’t even form an opinion on it.

  • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    You know what else I bet would jeopardize her professional career?

    Also that’s murder, not manslaughter.

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.one
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    2 months ago

    This is horrifying. Unfortunately this is a problem because most countries do not allow abortion after a certain period of pregnancy; and there is oftentimes no exceptions to this that isn’t “a Rape charge on someone they might have slept with.”

    This means that certain women can get “stealth-ed” by someone1 and not realize they’re pregnant until they’re too late past the abortion deadline because of their biology and inexperience with being pregnant. It’s also random and uncommon enough that authorities and lawmakers do not make accommodations for this situation.

    1 - This also includes other situations such as uncommon birth control failures.

    In this case; anti-abortion laws are intended to be cruel.

    Unfortunately, women who are unknowingly pregnant also can’t get help. I think it’s likely the woman did not know she was pregnant until some point nearing the birth in the 8th or 9th month. If you’re a woman who isn’t native to the country, don’t know it’s laws, don’t know where to get help and stuck on a business trip or company provided residency visa; I could see how easily one could be quite panicked.

    I don’t think she did the right thing. Unfortunately it’s a rare case of some grey areas which too often we tend to treat like a black area of wrong.

    • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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      This was a lawyer for a huge corporation… of anyone on the planet are you implying she just lacked access to an abortion? This woman is the most socially able example you could imagine…

      I am extremely pro-choice. That implies a choice of a woman over her body. Not a choice to murder a born and living person, just cause of the situation or someone’s thought processes.

      It may be hard to understand for people who think a mass of cells that would die without the mother living is an independent person who deserves to live regardless of if it kills the mother…

      But I got to say you are doing a disservice to what pro-choice means.

      Feels weird attaching pro-choice positions to a rich woman who threw a baby out the window instead of giving it up for adoption. That’s a disservice to the argument that poor people should have a choice in the first place.

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      To be fair, while abortion is technically not legal in Germany there are various allowances that essentially make it legal with restrictions. It is also for the most part less controversial than for example the united states. As for the restrictions: permitted within the first 12 weeks, after an advisement appointment with a doctor and a 3 day consideration period. For women with low income the mandatory health insurance covers the procedure, the restrictions also do not apply in cases of rape or health risk to the mother.

      I guess what I am saying is that the woman really had no excuse not to have an abortion or give birth and then give up the child for adoption. Fucking heinous crime, especially for something as mundane as what sounds like a mid level bureaucrat job.

    • Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works
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      I wonder if it was regret so much as a perinatal mood disorder or even postpartum psychosis. Very very sad. Until there’s evidence supporting the claim I think it’s best to give the benefit of the doubt.

    • testfactor@lemmy.world
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      While all that is definitely reasonable, it’s a pretty big leap from “the law prevented me from getting an abortion” to “I’mma just yeet this baby out the window.”

      Those ideas are so far apart as to not even remotely justify one another, right?

      Like, if someone gets cut off in traffic, and they get mad and mow down a dozen pedestrians, it’d be insane to be like, “Well, you have to understand, he got cut off real bad. Mowing down pedestrians is clearly wrong, but there’s definitely some real grey area there.”

      • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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        Pregnancy and birth normally is traumatic and fucks you up. Your brain is doing wild things chemically and drowning in hormones, that sometimes actually push people into a temporary insanity. People with postpartum psychosis can become violent to themselves and others, hallucinate, have delusions, etc. It happens ~2 out of 1,000 births. And is more likely if the person had an untreated mental health problem beforehand. Getting angry that somebody cut you off is not a medical thing. Psychosis 10 minutes after labor usually is.

        • testfactor@lemmy.world
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          Fair, and if the guy I responded to was saying that this was a grey area due to PP psychosis, I would have just agreed.

          But he was making the case that this was a grey area due to the abortion laws forcing her to give birth. That’s a much different stance, and the one I was replying to.

          • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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            But they’re not really disconnected? Sometimes abortion is the treatment for PPP and PPD. I know people don’t want to hear it. But it is true. Some people are not equipped to handle the pregnancy and birth, and to stay sane they need the out. Any barriers you put between them and their treatment makes these events more likely to happen.

            There was an American woman-whose name I forget but doubtless others will remember, who under the pressure of her fundamentalist christian husband kept having kids, and had PPD after each, and it was worse every time. She had counseling, she had anti-psychotics, her episodes were documented, but she was in an environment where she was pressured to carry to term. With her last pregnancy her PPD gave her religious delusions that her children were going to end up in Hell so she drown them all in a bathtub to save their souls. Pregnancy can be fraught on a healthy and willing person, what kind of pressure do you think it puts on someone who isn’t?

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      There’s also women that simply end up not loving their baby and society pressuring them to be happy can lead them to be miserable and to take bad decisions like in this case. People need to start feeling comfortable talking about that because it’s more common than some people would like to believe and these women should feel comfortable considering adoption even if it wasn’t their plan when they got pregnant.

      Even trying to look for articles on the subject is pretty much impossible in English while I find more info in my first language…

  • Naich@lemmings.world
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    We need to make it so women don’t have to feel this way…I thought Germany was fairly progressive like that, but obviously not enough.

    • Pothetato@lemmy.world
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      I mean sure but I think there’s a few extra steps between “feeling” this way and fucking doing it.

    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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      You can give someone access to all the help they need, but if they don’t seek it out, there’s not much you can do about it. It sounds like post partum depression may have played a role, that is real, but you can’t force someone into treatment.

    • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.place
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      I hope you’ll agree with me that there are alternatives before throwing your newborn baby off the window as if it was a fucking napkin.

      Even abandoning it in front of a church is more humane than what this bitch did.

      • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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        Don’t know this lady’s story. But post natal psychosis is a real tragic thing that can happen. This isnt the action of someone possessing their faculties.

        Why when abortion is available would you carry to term -and then so impulsively act? If for whatever reason she didn’t want the baby and couldn’t get the abortion, she had months to come up with a better plan than ‘throw it out a window’. Either she was undiagnosed with something the whole time, or the birth triggered a psychological episode imo.

      • Naich@lemmings.world
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        Yes, she’s obviously seriously disturbed, but the situation of women either having a career or family is the driver behind her actions. There needs to be systematic support so women can have the same opportunities as men.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          Apparently the career narrative is something the prosecutors put forward. She yeeted the baby just a few minutes after giving birth, there was something else going on here. If she was clear of mind and still wanted to kill the baby because of her career I’m sure this would not have been the first option.

        • Naich@lemmings.world
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          Literally why she did it, but bring on the downvotes. Fuck this place is getting like Reddit.

          • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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            “literally”

            Just making stuff up and misinterpreting the headline without reading the article. You’re right, this is like Reddit!

    • passntrash@midwest.social
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      Interesting take. I wonder if the headline was:

      “New Father and former Porsche Executive Throws Newborn Off Balcony”

      Your first thoughts would be how the system failed him and that Germany needs to do more to support fathers.

      • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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        It is a bit depressing how many guys in this thread don’t understand what pregnancy and childbirth can do to someone. Side effects may include: suicidal and homicidal urges. Google Postpartum Psychosis and Postpartum Depression.

        Everyone is asking but why didn’t she act in a sane way and give it up for adoption? Well, there are good odds she needed something prescribed to her to allow her to be sane. Pregnant people’s bodies are undergoing major chemical changes, labor opens the floodgates. Which is why it is very important to make it easy and stigma free to let everyone out of the queue who does not want to ride the ride, and make healthcare accessible to those that do.

        • Deceptichum
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          Their point is to call out the sexist take in feigning sympathy for a child murderer when we all know the world wouldn’t do that shit if it was a man.

            • Deceptichum
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              Calling out sexism in society isn’t strawmaning.

              • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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                Lmfao when men have to go through childbirth and have post partum depression then you’ll have a point.

                Until then, have fun winning arguments you made up in the shower you goof.

                • Deceptichum
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                  Men can go through those things.

                  And what about women who never have children?

                  What a terrible argument you’ve presented.

        • Klear@lemmy.world
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          Pretty sure it’s “fuck feminism”. I’ve seen this plenty of times before.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    Lots of heartless people in the comments who didn’t read her side of this. Honestly, I sympathize with her almost entirely.

    She didn’t know she was pregnant. This is something that happens to women of her size sometimes. Not all pregnancies have the telltale symptoms. Sometimes you learn about your pregnancy as you’re going into labor.

    It’s rare, but it absolutely happens.

    She went from having a normal evening, to giving a natural birth alone in her apartment in a matter of about 20 minutes. She went from thinking she was having cramps to holding her newborn baby.

    Within 10 minutes the baby had been dropped out of a window.

    The amount of trauma this woman experienced, combined with the extreme and often immediate postpartum mental health issues, including psychosis, absolutely led to her making a completely irrational and tragic decision. I find it hard to swallow that she deserves punishment as if this were a long thought out plan to kill a child. This was a poorly handled crisis handled by a traumatized woman in a fugue state. She was not in a sound state of mind.

    She doesn’t deserve prison, she deserves compassion for what she’s suffered and treatment for her mental ailments.

    That they interrogated her and used her panic over her career against her as if she schemed to kill a child to further her career is honestly a disgusting angle to try to punish this woman. They opportunistically grilled a woman experiencing trauma so that they could throw the book at her.

    • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
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      She murdered a baby. She needs rehabilitation, help, sure, but it doesn’t get much worse than baby killing, imo.

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        She was convicted of manslaughter, not murder. Even the courts that I am criticizing aren’t going as far as you.

        Regardless, whatever emotional response you have to the death of the baby shouldn’t matter in comparison to the circumstances and motives leading to it.

        Your zero-tolerance for “baby killing” is what lands women in prison for miscarriages.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    Hmmm. It looks like Germany has fairly strict limits on the availability of abortion; it’s on-demand up to 12 weeks, but requires mandatory counseling first. It seems like perhaps expanding abortion access to on-demand up to the point of realistic fetal viability and eliminating the counseling requirement might–might–have led to a different outcome here.

    I wonder if she had attempted to terminate her pregnancy prior to this point?

    For the people saying that she should have just adopted the infant: that’s extremely difficult for someone to do, even if they know that they don’t want a child or are not capable of caring for it. I’ve seen multiple teens end up keeping children that they didn’t plan on, didn’t want, and had no means to care for, all because they couldn’t go through with an adoption in the end.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.org
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      The government has called up an expert committee and asked for their opinion on potential reforms.

      The report came in April, and it strongly suggests making it actually legal in the first 12 weeks (it is currently only decriminalized) and getting rid of the mandatory counseling. They leave it up to the lawmakers to deal with week 12 to 22 (where the fetus starts being able to sustain itself).

      The government has not yet started on n implementing this, however.

  • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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    I guess she didn’t think infanticide would hurt it? She’s clearly not a good lawyer.