Why is Money More Important Than the Life of a Child?

"ABANDONED TO HER FATE," reads a December cover of Time Magazine, "Neighbors, teachers, and the authorities all knew Elisa Izquierdo was being abused. But somehow nobody managed to stop it." Stories like this are found throughout our newspapers and news shows today. More and more children are being abused and mistreated, leaving these precious little babies feeling unloved, unwanted, and forgotten. They slip through the cracks in our system. They know no other way of life. They don't know that Daddy and Mommy aren't supposed to hurt them.

If you were to read further into this Time magazine article and similar articles, you would find that for weeks and months Awilda Lopez, Elisa's mother, beat her daughter, violated her with toothbrushes and hairbrushes, made to eat her own bodily wastes, before finally, a month before her seventh birthday, Elisa's tiny skull was bashed into a cement wall. Neighbors will tell you of the moans and pleas they heard for months from the little girl as her mother did these unspeakable things to her. The authorities did nothing to save this little girl. Why?