Infanticide Essays

  • Infanticide

    1630 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the Merriam Webster dictionary, infanticide is a term described as the act of killing an infant. Other sources describe it as the act of killing one’s own child, or killing of a child less than 12 months old. Female infanticide is more common than the killing of male offspring. More often than not, it is the mother who does the killing. Infanticide has been recorded as far back as the ancient world, where they would abandon the infant by leaving it die to die of hunger, thirst, animal attack

  • Female Infanticide

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    Female Infanticide Female infanticide is the intentional killing of unborn or newborn female infants and fetuses through the use of sex-selective abortions. It it is most commonly practiced in third world countries and many Asian countries such as China and India. Many impoverished families in many rural areas in Asian countries often terminate a pregnancy or kill a newborn girl in an effort to save the girl form a life of poverty. If this was the reason they kill their children, then why don't

  • Essay On Infanticide

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    Philosophical Ethics February 20, 2014 Paper 1 Infanticide Infanticide, or the practice of deliberately killing a child within a year of birth, has been practiced by cultures throughout history and all over the world. It is still considered acceptable in some countries today, especially in areas experiencing extreme poverty and overpopulation. Female infanticide is practiced more, given cultural beliefs about gender, particularly in China and India. Infanticide is also practiced when parents are aware

  • Infanticide: Cross Cultural Analysis of the Causes of Infanticide

    1804 Words  | 4 Pages

    Infanticide is not unique to humans. It is practiced by many mammals including some primates. The main difference between human and animal infanticide is that infanticide in humans is performed by the parent(s) of the child while in the case of animals it is usually a male suitor (Caldwell and Caldwell, 2005, p. 208). In pre-modern societies infanticide was done instead of abortions as it allowed for sexual selection, it was much more effective than pre-modern contraception, and it did not require

  • Infanticide as an Evolutionary Behavior in Non-Human Primates

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    Infanticide (the killing of infants of the same species but of no relation) can be observed across the animal kingdom from lions to birds, but primates have been observed to practice this phenomenon more than any other order. It has been observed in several species ranging from chimps to macaques, but it appears that a large proportion of infanticides have one thing in common; they are followed by a mating of the aggressor with the widowed mother. Some of the observations make use of game theory

  • Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights - Infanticide and Sadism

    873 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wuthering Heights: Infanticide and Sadism I would like to begin by simply defining the terms infanticide and sadism. Webster's Dictionary defines infanticide as the killing of an infant or the suffering of an infant. The same source defines sadism as both a disorder in which sexual gratification is derived by causing pain or degradation to others and simply pleasure in being cruel. Now, while reading Wuthering Heights, I was giving every character the benefit of the doubt. I was accounting their

  • Chimpanzee

    2294 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chimpanzee The acts of cannibalism and infanticide are very apparent in the behavior of the chimpanzee. Many African studies show that wild chimpanzees kill and eat infants of their own species. (Goodall, 1986:151) Although there is not a clear answer why chimps engage in this very violent and sometimes gruesome behavior there are many ideas and suggestions. This essay will deal with chimpanzee aggression, cannibalism and infanticide. This paper will present information on major research studies

  • Skewed Sex Ratio in India: Stopping Female Foeticide

    1949 Words  | 4 Pages

    critically wish to analyze why despite awareness being created against such crime there hasn't been much substantial reduction achieved in this matter. I plan to structure the paper as such where initially I shall be dealing with what is female infanticide and foeticide. What thin line distinguishes the two and what has kept this practice intact despite 66 years of Independence. Later I shall point out how the law has been misused largely to dispose off the unwanted girl child, which instead were

  • Hunting and Gathering vs. Agriculture

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    aspects of their lives, hunter-gatherers societies are not necessarily “nasty, brutish, and short.” Some issues that we need to compare between hunting and gathering and agricultural societies include workloads, nutrition, production, starvation, infanticide, health and disease, and differences in wealth. From the work loads, it shows that in the barren environment of th...

  • Chagnon Debate

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    other discrepancies, cast an especially doubtful light on Chagnon’s research, and thus Harris’s conclusions. Harris reasons that if Yanamamo warfare is indeed caused by fights over women that this is caused not only by lack of females due to female infanticide which is legitimized through male supremacy which is legitimized through warfare, but also the males’ failure to bring home meat. In Cannibals and Kings Harris writes, “From the account of Helena Valero, a Brazilian captured by the Yanomamo, we

  • Treating or Terminating: The Dilemma of Impaired Infants and the Right to Be Human

    1420 Words  | 3 Pages

    Engelhardt, who must defend this position against groups who consider that we have the ability to prolong the lives of impaired infants, thus we are obligated to do so. Infanticide is associated with aiding the death of an infant and infant euthanasia. Jim Holt, contributing author for the New York Times, writes that, “Infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborns with the consent of the parents and society. This concept has been common throughout most of history. In some cultures it served as

  • Genetic Engineering and Gender of Born Babies

    1773 Words  | 4 Pages

    a third. A second effect of this societal influence pertains to China and its One-Child Policy. The effect is detrimental to its female population. An obvious result to such influence is a climb in the number of worldwide abortions, and infanticide. There is a new product on the market and available to the world right now that will aid society in its persuasion and this product is the Baby Gender Mentor™ Home DNA Gender Testing Kit. This product will have a grave significant effect on

  • Gender Roles in Euripides' Medea

    771 Words  | 2 Pages

    several acts of murder. We learn that Medea has killed her brother. Medea does not have any guilt about planning and carrying out the murders of king Creon and his daughter Glauke. As the play develops, the reader realizes that Medea plans to commit infanticide. I shall murder my children, these children of mine?if die they must, I shall slay them, who gave them birth.(Euripides 207-213) This contradicts society?s view that women are the givers of life and that men take it away. It is especially unacceptable

  • Supernatural in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Supernatural in Beloved One aspect in the novel Beloved is the presence of a supernatural theme. The novel is haunted. The characters are haunted by the past, the choices made, by tree branches growing on backs, by infanticide, by slavery. Sethe, Denver and Paul D are haunted by the past that stretches and grasps them in 124 in its extended digits. A haunt, Beloved, encompasses another supernatural realm, that of a vampire. She sucks the soul, heart and mind of her mother while draining

  • Roles of Women Through Time

    2793 Words  | 6 Pages

    Time Introduction - What I am going to do and include Different roles of women through time Different view on their roles P1 - Pre-islamic Arabia - Key issues of the life of a women Men + women inequal, laws about polygamy Female infanticide P2 - How womens rights increased when Islam progressed Polygamy rules Choices How the Qur'an and Hadith improve the situation P3 - Areas of inequality Children, education (% boys % girls up to what age?), Parenting (who says at home

  • Destiny, Fate, Free Will and Free Choice in Oedipus the King - Avoidance of Prophecy

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    henchman to be flung onto Òa barren, trackless mountainÓ; Jocasta believes her son dead. Laius had believed that by killing his only son, he would be able to avoid the oracleÕs prediction. However, the shepherd entrusted with the terrible task of infanticide pitied the baby and gave him to another shepherd, who, in turn, donated the child to the King and Queen of Corinth. The boy, Oedipus, was raised as the son of King Polybus and Queen Merope, and still believes himself to be their issue even

  • Essay on Toni Morrison's Beloved - Sethe's Act of Filicide

    1637 Words  | 4 Pages

    Morrison commented in an interview that Sethe's murder of Beloved "was the right thing to do, but she had no right to do it.... It was the only thing to do, but it was the wrong thing to do."1[1]  Does this remark prove the moral ambiguity of the infanticide, as Terry Otten argues?2[2]  Yes, it was right but wrong, and wrong but right.  However, the most important thing is that "It was the only thing to do."  Sethe had no choice.  If there is anything wrong, it must be either, in Paul D's words, her

  • Slavery and the Caribbean

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    428,000 out of a population of 500,000, so the number of slaves vastly exceeded the number of white owners and overseers. Absentee plantation owners added to the unrest. Rebellion was common, with the forms including self mutilation, suicide and infanticide as well as escape and maroonage (whereby the slaves escaped into the hills and wooded interiors of the islands and set up potentially threatening communities of their own. See references in Wide Sargasso Sea). Jamaica holds the record for slave

  • Chinas One-Child Policy

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    what is known as the "One-Child Policy" in order to try and solve their problem of overpopulation (McDonald, 1996). Although the policy may seem as though it is a good idea in solving the problem, the consequences of this policy has lead to female infanticide. Throughout centuries, China has been battling with overpopulation, one of the biggest issues that the nation has been faced with, forcing the government to enforce the one-child policy. The desire to control the rapidly growing population dates

  • Early Humans and the Environment

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    Early Humans and the Environment Early humans were quite different from modern humans. Modern humans have many technologies and advances that we take for granted. In my lifetime (1982 - present) I have seen the five and a half inch floppy yield to the dvd, cloning of sheep and other advances in the fields of math, science, and engineering. Humans and Pre-Humans have always been developing, either intentionally or unintentionally, technologies that were either necessary for the continuation of