Some stories absolutely disgust me. This story about a mentally ill woman who refused to come out of the bathroom for two years and became physically stuck to a toilet because of sores on her body is one of them.
Babcock‘s plight became known in February when McFarren called the Ness County sheriff, expressing concern about his live-in girlfriend. When authorities arrived, they found Babcock physically stuck to the toilet.
McFarren told police Babcock had refused to come out of the bathroom for two years. Medical personnel estimated she’d been sitting on the toilet for at least a month and said the seat had adhered to sores on her body.
She is now under the protection of a guardian who was appointed through the legal department at the hospital where she received treatment.
Six months on probation as a punishment for not alerting authorities to someone’s mental illness. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It is possible that this woman will receive appropriate care from the bureaucrats now in charge of her life. It’s also possible she’ll be abused, molested and generally thrown away and forgotten by society.
I don’t know what Pam Babcock’s mentall illness is, or her long term prognosis. I hope that she has a hope for recovery and the semblance of a normal life, but I’m dubious. If someone has reached the point where they are stuck to a toilet by the pus oozing from sores on their body, they are very ill indeed.
If people choose to live like animals, I don’t know that it is my responsibility to force them to live as a ward of the state instead. The boyfirend, Kory McFarren, doesn’t sound like a prize catch. However, he wasn’t physically hurting this woman. The story mentions no physical abuse. What was he charged with that resulted in six months probation?
If someone wants to sit on a toilet until they die why should the state intervene? Someone explain it to me. Why do we spend so much time and effort trying to protect people from themselves?