The thing is, I don't think that's the question this debate centers on at all. Of course Professor Pine was aware that she shouldn't bring her child to class. Why do you think she had day-care in the first place? The question is, given a last minute emergency that precluded day-care, would the students (many of whom commute) have been better served by having class canceled entirely. Professors shouldn't cancel class at the last minute, either.

There's a reason why I say that the reaction to this story is more interesting than the story itself. What's more interesting is how squeamishly people react with regard to issues that involve babies and motherhood (reaction to public breast-feeding just being a particularly dramatic example of that). It's not like every sub-optimal decision a professor makes becomes a national news story.