HATE THE CHILDREN WELL (via Eugene S.):

Novel of taboos and twists wins Orange: The story of a teenage psychopath that may have persuaded its writer to remain childless takes women's fiction award (John Ezard, June 8, 2005, The Guardian)

When Lionel Shriver got the idea for her seventh novel - which triumphed last night as winner of this year's £30,000 Orange prize for fiction - she and her husband were talking of having their first child.

By the time she finished the book, which deals with an almost taboo subject in fiction, they had decided firmly against parenthood. The decision will surprise nobody who opens We Need to Talk About Kevin, a story potent enough to scare some readers into deciding the same.

Its leading character is a US high school serial killer who is so psychopathically unloving almost from the moment he is born that his only concerns when older are how efficiently and sadistically he can slaughter his victims.

The broadcaster Jenni Murray, who was chair of the judging panel, announced the award at a London ceremony, saying: "Kevin is a book that acknowledges what many women worry about but never express - the fear of becoming a mother and the terror of what kind of child one might bring into the world."

Kate Mosse, the founder and honorary director of the women-only prize, said: "It is such an enormous and important subject that it is surprising more books haven't been written on it. We were able to find very few."

Explain to me again why people still think we share a civilization with these antihuman monsters?

MORE:
Beauty salons fuel trade in aborted babies: Racketeers pay Ukraine women to sell foetuses to quack clinics for £10,000 courses of 'anti-ageing' jabs (Tom Parfitt, April 17, 2005, The Observer)

Aborted foetuses from girls and young women are being exported from Ukraine for use in illegal beauty treatments costing thousands of pounds, The Observer can reveal.

The foetuses are cryogenically frozen and sold to clinics offering 'youth injections', claiming to rejuvenate skin and cure a raft of diseases.

It is thought that women in the former Soviet republic are being paid £100 a time to persuade them to have abortions and allow their foetuses to be used in treatments. Most of the foetuses are sold in Russia for up to £5,000 each. Some are paid extra to have abortions late in their pregnancy.

Border guards stopped a train entering Russia from Ukraine last week and arrested a 'mule' carrying 25 frozen foetuses hidden in two vacuum flasks. The man said he had bought them from a medical research centre.

Ukrainian law allows an aborted human foetus to be passed to research institutes if the woman involved consents and her anonymity is protected

As John Edwards said: "When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will have perfect skin."

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2005 7:04 PM