Introduction: Rethinking the Criminalization of Childbirth: Infanticide in Premodern Europe and the Modern Americas (original) (raw)
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Monsters of Inhumanity? Methods of Infant Disposal
2013
In this chapter we will investigate the different options open to women in the pre-modern period who experienced an unwanted pregnancy. Although new-born child murder constituted a significant proportion of recorded female criminality, as we established in previous chapters, the offence was not perpetrated on a wide-scale or on a regular basis.2 Consequently, it would seem safe to assume that the majority of women, who recognised their condition, simply accepted their fate, bore their child — legitimate or otherwise — and embraced motherhood and child-rearing, to whatever extent their circumstances would allow. However, for some women maternity was not an option; we will explore the reasons for this in Chapter 6.
Newborn Murder and its Legal Prevention
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A newborn’s murder committed by his/her mother always causes an exceptional emotional response in the society. The fact of neonaticide evokes emotions not only because a new life is the most vulnerable part of the society unable to defend itself, but also the mother’s aggression directed to her own “ flesh and blood” contradicts the laws of existence, denies the power of mother instincts, unconditional love for her children. The aim of the work is to study the legal regulation in Lithuania, prevalence, dynamics of this crime, its murder locations, social characteristics of offenders, possibilities of applying preventive, rehabilitative measures and the new prospects to enlarge the efficiency of the legal persecution of the neonaticide in Lithuania. The retrospective investigation was conducted in a period from 1990 to 2012 by examining depersonalised statistical cards provided by The Information Technology and Communications Department under the Ministry of the Interior of the Repub...
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Social & Legal Studies, 2006
Drawing on autopoiesis theory, Ward (1999) challenges the established view that the adoption of the English infanticide law in 1922 (amended 1938) is an example of the medicalization of law, insisting that the 1922 Act embodied a lay biological theory and that contemporary psychiatric theories of the ‘insanities of reproduction’ focused on socio-economic, rather than biological, stressors. Both the medicalization and autopoiesis interpretations of infanticide law are misplaced. A broader review of the medical literature discussed by Ward, and of a related anthropological literature he does not treat, reveals a more complex picture: while Ward’s critique of the medical- ization thesis is broadly apposite, and an associated anthropological literature was also more socio-economic than bio-racist (Reekie, 1998), there was a bio-medical strand of thought, as well as an equally biological atavistic line of theory regarding infanticide, which ran alongside the socio-economic model. In addition, the expressed biologism of infanticide law, whatever its origins, can still be thought of as contributing to the medicalization of law subsequent to its passage and amendment, especially given the dominance of the bio-medical model in psychiatry since the 1960s. KEYWORDS atavism; autopoiesis; colonialism; infanticide; medicalization
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2006
The legal position of the foetus raises difficult questions about the status which we accord the developing human being within society. Most conceptions of criminal liability are predicated on the person; usually, there is a victim and an aggressor, both of whom must be legally relevant persons before doctrines of criminal law can be applied. Conceptions of personhood in this context are most often taken in relatively straightforward terms. Surely we know who is, and is not, a “legally relevant person”? And yet, the question is not easily answered in respect of the foetus. Within the UK and American traditions, a “legally relevant person” has not included the unborn child, but increasing developments in the field of foetal rights, particularly in some American jurisdictions, casts doubt on this. In analysing the status of the foetus under national criminal laws, there are two questions to be posed. First, is the foetus capable of being described as a victim and secondly, should reco...
Abortion today is a burning issue. The question related to it was raised by Feminists-whether a woman has right over her body or not? A fetus is developed within the body of a woman hence the concept of abortion is related with the notion of feminism closely. It is moral to use if the life of the mother is in danger. But one can illegally use this medical process to abort only female child (female infanticide). Thus there is high chance to misuse this medical tool. However in this present dissertation I want to focus on the question of abortion from the point of view of human rights.
Routine Infanticide in the West 1500-1800
History Compass, 2016
Historians have assumed that early modern Europeans did not practice neo-naticide similar to the great Asian civilizations, but sex-ratio studies are only now entering the demographic literature. This article passes in review both published and unpublished research on sex ratios at baptism in Italy, France, England and colonial Acadia, together with juvenile sex ratios drawn from censuses in Germany, France and Italy. Both endemic and conjunctural imbalances appear everywhere, but they could target females or males depending upon the context. It is still considered newsworthy that in much of the world, parents select the sex of their children before bringing a pregnancy to term. In China, the sex ratio at birth is currently 116 males for every female, while in India, the rate is 111, significantly above the well-established biological norm of 105. 1 This sex preference creates well-publicized difficulties for young men seeking brides (The Economist, April 18 2015). Why kill females preferentially? The literature often lays the blame on misogynistic ideologies, suggesting that it would be sufficient to combat them with propaganda in order to eradicate the practice. There are several better reasons: first of all, in agricultural economies requiring strenuous ploughing with large animals and equally strenuous field and forest work far from home, males were better value. In patrilocal societies where husbands, or their families, received a sizeable dowry for the bride (which served as a security cushion for her and her children in the event of the premature death of either spouse), parents were unequal to the task of providing those for several daughters. Finally, if the aim is to keep the future population stable in order not to overstretch resources, then killing future child-bearers is simply more efficient than killing males and females indiscriminately. Today unwanted pregnancies are usually terminated by abortion, but in the past, the safer solution was to kill the newborn or expose it to the elements. Infanticide, like abortion, may be human universals, that is, part of the behavioural repertoire of every known society, although its frequency would vary according to local environmental conditions. 2 Humans are not alone in this behaviour: mothers in many species of mammals will sometimes cull their offspring at birth. In Darwinian language, infanticide, or abortion that has replaced it, are adaptive mechanisms involving some kind of rational decision-making on the part of the parent, which is usually the mother. 3 In most societies, newborns are not considered full-f ledged persons when leaving the womb. Rather, some sort of ceremony confers a name and social identity on them, sometimes providing an additional set of symbolic kin. Returning to the great Asian civilizations where sex-selective behaviour persists, parents enact strategies to better themselves and assess the likelihood of survival and future of the newborn infant. In traditional China and Japan, neonatal infanticide was a kind of post-natal abortion that allowed parents to choose the number, the spacing and the sex of their offspring, while coping better with short-term difficulties like famine. 4 In his compelling recent study on northeastern Japan, Fabian Drixler suggests that one-third of live births ended with infanticide during the 18th century, despite government disapproval of the practice. 5 Historians sometimes