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Keli Lane is found guilty of murdering her baby Tegan.

This is one of those stories that makes me question a ton of my beliefs. Beliefs about abortion, adoption, motherly instincts, feminism, human nature….everything. I was originally not going to post on this story because there are no winners in this story. No glee to be had that Keli Lane has been found guilty of murdering her newborn baby Tegan whose body has never been found. If you made this story up, nobody will believe you. The facts are almost incomprehensible.
This, from today’s Fairfax press:

SHE had been silent, seemingly serene, for the four months she was on trial. But when she was found guilty yesterday of murdering her newborn daughter, Tegan, Keli Lane unleashed an anguished wail, then collapsed in the dock of the Supreme Court.

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Her cry of ”Oh, no” was echoed in the gallery by her distraught mother, Sandra Lane, as court officers rushed to her aid and jurors fought back their own tears.

Tegan’s disappearance – her very existence – went unremarked for three years, until records uncovered of her birth at Auburn Hospital on September 12, 1996 prompted a missing person investigation.

It is astonishing to me that anyone could fall pregnant five times accidentally in a few years when they actively did not want to have a baby. It’s astonishing that anyone could disguise one pregnancy let alone 3. It’s astonishing that someone could keep getting pregnant and keep giving away their babies until…..well, we’ll never know what happened to Tegan because Keli Lane won’t say. She has refused to take the stand throughout this trial for reasons known only to her.

My phone started vibrating yesterday afternoon as the verdict came in and girlfriends began texting me their shock. I was surprised – and then immediately ashamed – by my own reaction to the news which was to pump my fist and say “yes!”. One of my wisest friends, a journalist, who had predicted an aquittal based on the fact there was no material evidence or a body, expressed her own surprise and then added: “I hope she gets treatment and not just jail. Two families have babies because of Keli’s madness. How awful for them, when they grow up and find out the truth.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t thought of a lot of things. Like the fact that Keli Lane has had another child since Tegan, one that she kept and who is now probably going to lose her mother for years.

To me, this is a story of tragedy upon tragedy. The only silver lining are that Keli’s first two babies were adopted safely into loving families…..

What do you think?