Murder has arguably existed in our society since the beginning of time and is one type of crime that may never cease to exist. There are many different justifications made for people who willingly choose to end the life of another human being. However, one of the few types of murder that throughout time is inexcusable is known as infanticide. Infanticide is defined the crime of killing a child within a year and is commonly committed by the mother of said child. Nowadays, the crime of infanticide is split up into 3 categories, the category of neonaticide; which is the murder of a child up to 24 hours after birth1, is the one which will be the focus of this paper. In the past this crime was seen to be one of the most egregious and appalling as …show more content…
This statute stipulates that single women who give birth out of wedlock who cannot prove whether the child was stillborn will be assumed guilty of murder.3 At the time, those found guilty of murder were sentenced to death, a severe punishment. The severity of the punishment correlates with the negative opinions the community held for women who committed infanticide which will be discussed later in this …show more content…
As such, by killing her child, a women rejects her primary role in the household - to bear and care for children. This rejection of social norms is highly frowned upon by society from the 17th through to the 20th century. It is critical to note that the majority of the women who committed infanticide were of the servant class and had their children out of wedlock. A woman in this situation was seen as dishonourable which could cause her to lose her job and reputation. If a woman in this position lost her job, she would be unable to financially support even herself without a child. This was not the case for men who could engage in premarital intercourse without the negative backlash from society. In some cases in the 1600’s the public felt some compassion towards the offender. However, it was often times the neighbours or people close to the offender who found the child and turned her in to the authorities. For example, on October 15th 1679 a poor young wench confessed to the murder of her child and was convicted of the crime.8 This case is of significance because it is one that is stated to have invoked compassion from those involved. This is because the woman had been promised marriage but instead had a child out of wedlock which would lead to her loss of honour. While the
Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood by Kristen Luker, analyzes the historical and complex sociology of abortion. Luker focuses on three important factors: a historical overview of abortion, the pro-life and pro-choice views, and the direction the abortion debates are going (11, Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood p. 000). Abortion has always been seen as murder and with the idea that those who are already living have more rights. Back in the days, the laws didn’t give fetus personhood. Also, the laws against abortions weren’t strictly enforced upon anyone. In addition, abortion didn’t seem to be a huge problem, which explains why abortion was ignored in the past.
The Queen vs. Davis case concerns the murder trial of Arthur Paul Davis and Alice Davis that occurred in 1875. In it, they were tried and convicted of murder for conducting an abortion; the killing of a fetus and subsequently causing death of the victims, Catherine Laing and Jane Vaughn Gilmour. This essay will examine the historical context of the case, what the trial reveals about the nature of women’s lives in Toronto during the 1870s as subordinate women who are deemed as caretakers and how women managed to end unwanted pregnancies. During the late 19th century ending an unwanted pregnancy was an illegal offence because it was considered unethical to kill a fetus. Women were not able to access safer alternatives such as contraception, as it was an offence to sell or advertise them at that time. Women did not claim they wanted an abortion directly, but rather that they wanted to be fixed of their problem. They did not feel guilty as they thought it was acceptable to induce abortion before the 3rd month of pregnancy or quickening of it, which under the English common law, it was not wrongful to procure an abortion prior to the feeling any movement of the fetus. Doing an Abortion was a private matter but nonetheless a criminal offence. Beginning in the early 19th century, laws were passed to support the prohibition of abortions; these then continued on to the revision and creation of the 1892 criminal code for abortion.
The birth of a child is usually a wonderful and priceless occasion. However, on June 5, 2015, an eleven-year-old girl gave birth to a newborn girl. Approximately a year before she gave birth, her 40-year-old father repeatedly sexually assaulted her. In this case, the unprepared eleven-year-old child decided to have the baby. This is a prime example that illustrates that the right to abortion should always be vested in the woman. Abortion, which has been debated for centuries and will continue to be fought upon for centuries to come, is a hot issue among social, political, and religious entities. This research paper will inform the reader about abortion using scholarly journals to define abortion, specifically when a fetus becomes a human being,
"Abortion: In Law, History & Religion." Childbirth By Choice Trust. May 1995. 26 April 2004. <http://www.cbctrust.com/abortion.html>
Abortion is an immoral act of killing and there are other much more logical moral ways to handle unwanted pregnancies. This paper full of information is to show the crewel harsh side of abortion so people can know that there is more to the act than the convenience makes it look like. The baby doesn’t just disappear, the baby dies. Please refer to this to inform others, many people have no idea and this paper will help them
Infanticide is a way to alter the reproductive stream before the child has the status of a real person, which is culturally defined (source). The deaths of weak, illegitimate, excess, deformed and unwanted infants are not defined as murder when the infants have not yet been born into the social world. Infanticide occurs cross-culturally for a multitude of causes. The reasons for infanticide can be summed up into three categories: biological (including the health of the child and twin stigmas), economical (relation to other children, women's workload, and available resources) and cultural (preferred gender, illegitimate children). This essay will examine cross-culturally the biological, economic and cultural factors for infanticide.
Marquis believes abortion to be extremely immoral. However he mentions that there are exceptions in rare but certain circumstances where abortion is acceptable. We can infer that these instances would include situations that would put the mother or child at serious risk by keeping the fetus. He is frustrated that this idea has received minimal support recently. As a result he wants to influence change in society in hopes of receiving the support and publicity this topic deserves. Marquis’ primary argument stems from the idea of killing in general. He explains it is immoral to kill an adult because it prematurely deprives the human of something they may have valued at the time they were killed, as well as something they may had valued in the future. Although the victim may not realize it at the time of their death, they certainly had a valuable future ahead of them to experience which has been cut short. We are the only ones who can decide what is valuable to them; in this case we value some things more than others, and this concept differs from person to person. For example, in the present I value the life I am given and the opportunity I have to earn my degree at Villanova University while also valuing my future as well knowing that I have a chance to be successful in the future. Although I have not succeeded yet, I still value that opportunity I have and the life I’m capable of achieving through earning a degree. Therefore, he connects this same theory to the life of a fetus. By killing the fetus the result is the same, we are depriving it of its futur...
Pregnant and Imprisoned in the United States. (2000). Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, 27(4), 266-
Advocates of criminalization also stressed society’s obligation to halt the declining birthrate among white Americans. And many stressed the need to protect the sanctity of motherhood and the chastity of white women; abortion, after all, supported the separation of sexual intercourse from reproduction. For many physicians and others, all of these concerns where generally more trenchant in the nineteenth century than the issue of fetal life. (Solinger: 5).
Rape is among the more horrific violations of human dignity imaginable. It is a crime committed by the male, not the female—and certainly not by the child it might produce. When rape results in pregnancy, the baby has the same right to life as any child born by mutually loving parents. Only the Nazis would execute a child for the crimes of his or her father.
Cornelia Hughes Dayton, the author of the article “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” found in Women and Health in America, describes the common argument as to why abortion may have taken place. In the article Dayton discusses a couple, Sarah Grosvenor and Amasa Sessions, that had a sexual relationship that led to pregnancy, and then abortion in 1742, a time when abortion was not illegal, but was not accepted completely by society. The issue in the Grosvenor-Sessions case was that Grosvenor died after John Hallowell performed an abortion. A case was initiated three years after Sarah’s death to investigate her death as a murder committed by Hallowell, Sessions, Sarah’s sister, and her cousin (the last three being accessories to the murder). Sarah Grosvenor’s sister and cousin’s charges were dropped and no punishment occurred. For S...
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
The article A Defense of Abortion written by Judith Thomson and the article Why Abortion is Immoral by Don Marquis deal with the arguments of whether abortion is moral, immoral, justified or not. The author Don Marquis wants to prove that abortion is immoral without taking into consideration extreme cases, while Thomson says that abortion is justified in some cases. The latter supports her arguments by saying that abortion is justified in cases such as rape and when the mother’s life, which is the most important here, is in danger. On the other hand, Marquis says that abortion can’t be justified, because abortion is killing a person who might have a future, without much reference to any other cases that might lead to abortion.
The legal system in the United States doesn’t have a lot of gray areas when it comes to murder cases, usually someone’s going to jail at the end of the day. However there are certain cases involving children where the law needs to be viewed with exceptions. Sometimes the laws need to bring new ideas and concepts into consideration that weren’t thought of when the laws were originally written. For instance in most cases when an adult kills another adult, the adult who killed the other person will be convicted and sent to prison. But in the cases of when a young child kills another person the law cannot be too quick to convict them due to many discoveries in the field of childhood development. A young child ages 2-6 is still developing biologically,
Many women were punished for being pregnant and were regarded as sex offenders or delinquents. During the 1950's, there were homes were unmarried young women were sent, along with their babies. They were made to stay in these uncomfortable, non-nurturing conditions for months, almost like prison, for the crime of bringing a baby into the world . This was thought to be a solution to any financial burdens the woman and her child might cause (18 Ravoira). More commonly, the young women were sent away to the homes of relatives, etc. to have their babies, and then a hasty adoption was secured. This was to prevent...