Posted by
MacArthur Parker on Monday, March 23, 2009 2:19:45 PM
An 18-year-old woman sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend of two months, who proceeded to forward the photo to his friends. She was then teased about it, and subsequently committed suicide. Her parents seem to think that this requires a new law against "sexting". It doesn't occur to them that the same self-esteem problem that caused her to date a jerk and send him naked pictures may have also caused her to commit suicide over being called names. They are in pain, and therefore the law must change to reflect their emotions.
This phenomenon is nothing new. Parents who lose a child tragically often seek to rewrite laws so that "no other parent goes through what they went through" and "their child's death was not for nothing". But if we think rationally, they are the last people who should be formulating public policy, since the loss of a child is so very traumatic that it clouds all reason. Sadly, some people will die young, and no law can change that. And most of those deaths ARE pointless.
Bad cases make for bad law, and any law named after a victim is probably bad public policy.