On this reading, Aristotle is simply applying his own scientific understanding of human embryological development to local religious beliefs about the wrongness of exposure. Then, he is applying his own scientific understand- ing of when, in the course of embryological development, a fetation becomes an animal, i.
Needless to say, all of this is rather unimportant for our discussion. Aristotle on Abortion and Infanticide 57 customary laws against killing a human being for population control purposes, then you should procure the abortion before the fetation becomes animal; other- wise, you will possibly be doing something unholy, i. This alone should lead us to realize that he is in no position to generate a strong prohibition against abortion.
Killing or causing the death of a new-born child very often called a brephos, a term also used to refer to the fetus in the womb in the first days of life was something quite different—legally, morally, and terminologically it seems—from killing a child who was a recognized and named member of a family. The exposure of a non-accepted child not only did not count as homicide; it was socially acceptable. However, at least to some degree exposure was distinguished from intentional killing.
Feen considers the implications of a father actively killing his child before he acknowledged it as his own, which can be distinguished from exposure in that the latter is an act of omission rather than commission. To be sure, the child is a human being. Seeing that the father had not officially recognized the child previous to his bloody deed, the child was without a family to prosecute its claim in the magistrates in the first place.
In addition, there was the crime of hybris in which one did harm to another through the abuse of personal power. In short, it involved any kind of misbehavior whatsoever towards another, regardless of the status of the person harmed. With all of these considerations in mind, we can now reformulate N to capture the fact that it really only applies conditionally.
However, as we saw above with Feen, there does seem to be some distinction between killing and letting die, just not one that underwrites a distinction between exposure and murder. Aristotle on Abortion and Infanticide 59 Obviously, even if we substitute EC for EA , all we would be entitled to conclude is: 3''' With the benefit of contemporary embryology Aristotle would today hold that if the customary laws forbid exposure, then most if not all abortions violate those laws i.
Ultimately, this follows simply because he is not really opposed to infanticide. This should give pause to the pro-life commentators who wish to enlist Aristotle on their side. I take it that most pro-life commentators think that they would have more or less established their case if they could show a moral equivalency between abortion and infanticide.
That is, most of us think that the following argument is sound: 5 Abortion and infanticide are morally equivalent acts. I take it that even the majority on the pro-abortion side would consider 6 to border on self-evidently true. Thus, the disagreement really turns on the truth of 5 , with the pro-abortion advocates denying the moral equivalency of the two acts in a variety of ways.
There is a gap here, but in the absence of contrary evidence it seems a reasonable assumption given the context. Since all modern abortions even of the partial-birth variety would occur pre-amphidromia, none would qualify as a case of homicide. This means that in the Politics Aristotle lacks the normative principles to rule out abortion, whatever his empirical beliefs are regarding human embryology.
Precisely because Aristotle seems to accept the Greek cultural practices on expo- sure uncritically, determining the Aristotelian position on abortion today requires much more than simply substituting a more accurate set of empirical findings EC for his set of inaccurate empirical findings EA. With the benefits of modern embryological science he would presumably have to give up large parts of his hylomorphic conception of reproduction e.
However, suitably understood, I do not think contemporary biological evidence provokes anything like so great a challenge for his hylomorphic account of individual biological substances i. Rather, he would likely conclude that with nuclear fusion of the parental gametes the zygote 44 Of course, the moral significance of the amphidromia is itself consequent on an acceptance of the Greek cultural practices.
To grant that moral significance requires us to allow the possibility that a right not to be killed has to be granted by the state, rather than following directly from aspect of human nature.
Again this reflects the vast difference between the Greek and modern conception of the relationship between the individual and the state. This is, ultimately, not a biological question, but a philosophical one. Aristotle on Abortion and Infanticide 61 becomes an ontologically distinct biological human individual, with latent sensitive and rational potentialities. As such, the developmental process would be one of the progressive actualization of these potentialities, including beyond birth.
In and of itself, this would not determine the matter against abortion. We would still need to generate stronger normative principles against the killing of immature human beings than Aristotle seems to accept.
Far from it, with Alasdair MacIntyre I believe that our moral vocabulary and conceptual universe are deeply indebted to Aristotle. However, to attempt to construct a contemporary Aristotelian position on abortion would require us not simply to cherry pick a normative principle from his works and apply it in light of contemporary empirical evidence.
Rather, in the best spirit of Aristotelian inquiry itself, it would require us to do the hard work of rethinking large parts of normative structure of his thought in light of his deeper metaphysical commitments.
Of course, that is far beyond the scope of the present project, but I do think there are reasons for thinking it could be done and, in the end, we might draw some useful conclusions. Further, it is almost certainly the case that they would balk at his subordination of reproductive choice to the interests of the state.
Thus, the grounds of his support for abortion would be of little to no interest for most contemporary supporters of the grisly practice. At the same time, Thomas of course has access to normative principles unavailable to Aristotle, and it is precisely those resources that encompass some of our distance from Aristotle.
That being the case, we cannot neatly slot Aristotle into a contemporary position by simply modifying the empirical aspects of his views on embryological development as some have sought to do. It may be the case that a more extensive reworking of a basically Aristotelian metaphysical position would generate such a result, but this would require much more work than simply substituting his flawed empirical assumptions for our presumably more accurate ones.
It is for reasons like these, perhaps, that later commentators sought to supplement his eudaemonist framework with the precepts of the Natural Law. Needless to say, any remaining errors are mine alone. Panidis, Y. Panidis Abortion and Virtue Ethics By M.
The authors completed database searches for peer-reviewed articles in English regarding maternal filicide over the past quarter century. Studies were separated by population type, as in our previous analysis 14 , because studies in the general population differ from those in psychiatric or correctional populations.
Maternal filicide-suicide a mother kills both her child and herself was considered independently. In addition to studies of mothers who have committed filicide 3 , 4 , 15 - 55 , several studies have investigated the prevalence of filicidal thoughts in various populations. An American macro-level study of infanticide victims in the first year of life found increased rates with economic stress Although England and Wales have Infanticide Acts, and Scotland does not, the countries experience similar rates of infanticide 3 , Maternal infanticide studies in the general population 20 , 38 , 44 , 45 found a predominance of unemployed mothers in their early 20s.
Many cases occurred in the context of child abuse 4 , though some mothers had associated suicide attempts. In Japan, the infant victims frequently had physical anomalies. The mothers were often poor, socially isolated, full-time caregivers, who were victims of domestic violence or had other relationship problems.
Disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and primary responsibility for the children were common. Persistent crying or child factors were sometimes precipitants for the filicide. Some mothers had previously abused the child, while others were mentally ill and devoted to their child Neglectful or abusive mothers were often substance abusers.
Many of the perpetrators had psychosis, depression, or suicidality 15 , 16 , 18 , 20 , 28 , 40 - 43 , 45 , 48 , 51 , In the correctional population, filicidal mothers were frequently unmarried, unemployed abuse victims, who had limited education and social support 29 - 33 , 46 - 47 , 53 , Some had decreased intellect, and a few considered the child victim to be abnormal.
Several correctional studies noted frequent depression, psychosis, substance abuse, suicidality, and prior mental health care 33 , 46 , 47 , 53 , Multiple stressors economic, social, abuse history, partner relationship problems , primary caregiver status, and difficulty caring for the child were frequent. The filicidal mothers in psychiatric samples had frequently experienced psychosis, depression, suicidality, and prior mental health care 18 , 19 , 22 , 25 - 27 , 34 - 37 , 39 , 49 , 50 , Their mean age was in their late 20s 18 , 19 , 22 , 25 , 34 - Some were diagnosed with personality disorders and some had low intelligence.
Significant life stresses were often noted. Our recent study of mothers found not guilty by reason of insanity in two U. Over one third of the homicides occurred during pregnancy or the postpartum year.
Almost all the mothers had altruistic or acutely psychotic motives A small New Zealand study that interviewed the mothers after their filicides found that psychotic mothers who had committed filicide often killed suddenly without much planning, whereas depressed mothers had contemplated killing their children for days to weeks prior to their crimes Many other mothers make non-fatal suicide attempts in association with their filicides.
Filicide-suicides have much in common with filicides committed by severely mentally ill mothers Most frequently, these mothers have altruistic motives 15 , Similar to results of other studies 15 , 20 , 48 , our recent American study found that maternal filicide-suicide perpetrators killed older children more often than infants mean age of children killed was 6 years old.
The mothers often had evidence of depression or psychosis These mothers often take the lives of all their young children. A relatively high incidence of filicidal thoughts has been found in mentally ill women. Thirty-six percent of these women engaged in some type of infanticidal behavior. Their behavior was associated with negative maternal reaction to separation, psychotic beliefs about the infant, and female sex of the infant. Our recent survey of psychiatrists at two American academic institutions found that many psychiatrists do not specifically ask their patients who are mothers about thoughts of harming their children, but rather they inquire generally about homicidal thoughts The surveyed psychiatrists frequently underestimated the prevalence of depressed mothers who have thoughts of harming their children.
Infanticide laws often reduce the penalty for mothers who kill their children up to one year of age, based on the principle that a woman who commits infanticide does so because "the balance of her mind is disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child" The British Infanticide Act of amended in allows mothers to be charged with manslaughter rather than murder if they are suffering from a mental disturbance.
The law was originally based on the outdated concept of lactational insanity, but the public's desire to excuse sympathetic women caused reluctance to alter the law after lactational insanity was discredited.
Women convicted of infanticide often receive probation and referral to mental health treatment rather than incarceration The majority of nations that have infanticide laws have followed the British precedent and decrease the penalty for mothers killing children under one year old. However, the legal definition of infanticide varies among countries. The murder of children up to age ten is included in New Zealand In practice, however, women convicted of infanticide in England sometimes do not have significant mental illness as technically required by the law Opponents of infanticide laws point out that fathers are granted far less leniency.
A father who is equally psychotically depressed as a mother, who kills his month-old child in an altruistic psychotic belief with an associated suicide attempt, should not be treated differently than a similarly situated mother. Some feminists criticize the infanticide laws for "pathologizing childbirth".
They believe that making this exception for women denies them the same capacity for self-governance attributed to men If the U. An acutely psychotic mother who killed her 13 month old child would not qualify for the infanticide law in England though a mother who battered her 11 month old child might. Psychiatrists should assess filicide risk in a systematic way, as they do for suicide.
First they must entertain the possibility of maternal filicide. Psychiatrists should intervene to prevent potential filicides in which maternal mental illness plays a role. Mothers who have altruistic or acutely psychotic motives for filicide may be psychotic, depressed, manic, or delirious. Some mothers who come to psychiatric attention because of severe mental illnesses, personality disorders, or substance use disorders may be abusing or neglecting their children.
Psychiatrists may ask about childrearing practices, parenting problems, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Strategies for prevention must be tailored to the different motivations of mothers who commit filicide. Depressed mothers who have the potential to kill in extended suicides should be identified early.
Mothers contemplating suicide should be asked directly about the fate of their children if they were to take their own life. Some will say their husband is quite able to look after them and others will volunteer that they would take their children to heaven with them. Thoughts or fears of harming their children should be queried.
Threats must be taken seriously. A lesser threshold for hospitalization should be considered for mentally ill mothers of young children due to the possibility of multiple deaths from a filicide-suicide. Factors which potentially merit psychiatric hospitalization include maternal fears of harming their child, delusions of their child's suffering, improbable concerns about their child's health, and hostility toward a despised partner's favorite child Psychotic mothers who fear that their children may suffer a fate worse than death due to persecutory delusions should either be hospitalized or separated from their children.
These mothers may be reluctant to share their delusional ideas. Delusions may sometimes be elicited through a sympathetic exploration of their concerns for the safety of their children. In some cases, the only evidence of concern is frequent checking by the mother on the health and safety of her children. Though psychotic mothers may have less warning about filicide, psychiatrists can ask about hallucinations or delusional thoughts regarding the children.
Among Indian mothers with postpartum severe mental illness, a recent study found that mothers with delusions about their infant engaged in more abuse Early screening and identification of mental illness both antenatally and postnatally is important.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale 68 , 69 is a validated tool that can be easily administered both in pregnancy and the postpartum. Because hospital length of stay after delivery is shorter now, many cases of postpartum psychosis could be undetected in the community.
Therefore, community education is important. Support services for mothers and accessible psychiatric services for at-risk populations are needed. More filicides occur due to fatal maltreatment than because of maternal psychiatric illness. Many cases of fatal maltreatment filicide never come to psychiatric attention. Mothers may kill their children who fail to respond to demands such as to stop crying Mothers who batter their children to death are likely to have abused their children more than once before 15 , Early intervention to protect these children is more likely to fall to child protective agencies than to psychiatrists.
All 50 states in the U. Parenting classes, emotional support, and emergency numbers to call when mothers are overwhelmed can be helpful in preventing fatal maltreatment filicides. Maternal substance abuse must also be treated. Child protective agencies must remove children who are at risk of serious abuse. Mothers who are diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome should be evaluated to see if they have engaged in Munchausen syndrome by proxy behaviors. Child protective agencies should be receptive to accepting children into their care who are unwanted, even if no abuse or neglect has yet occurred.
Spouse revenge filicide is difficult to prevent, because there is usually little warning. This behavior most often occurs after learning of spousal infidelity or in the course of child custody disputes.
Sometimes a mother is so convinced that her child will be sexually abused if permanent custody is awarded to her ex-husband that she decides the child is better off in heaven. Evaluators of child custody disputes should be alert for this potential. Children under age 5 may have limited contacts outside of their household and have difficulty speaking out to others, while older children often attend school and can thus reveal child abuse.
In the U. Infant and child factors such as colic 60 or autism 72 may increase risk. This suggests a potential role for pediatricians in prevention as well. A mother's motive for filicide may be altruistic, acutely psychotic, or due to fatal maltreatment, unwanted child, or spouse revenge. In addition, many mothers who do not attempt filicide experience thoughts of harming their child.
Maternal filicide motives provide a framework for approaching filicide prevention. Suicidality, psychosis and depression elevate risk, as does a history of child abuse. Mentally ill filicidal mothers have very different risk profiles than mothers who fatally batter their children. Prevention is difficult, because many risk factors, such as maternal depression and social disadvantage, are common among non-filicidal mothers.
National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List World Psychiatry v. World Psychiatry. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Copyright World Psychiatric Association. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract The tragedy of maternal filicide, or child murder by mothers, has occurred throughout history and throughout the world.
Keywords: Filicide, infanticide, child homicide. Infanticide An American macro-level study of infanticide victims in the first year of life found increased rates with economic stress General population studies of maternal filicide The mothers were often poor, socially isolated, full-time caregivers, who were victims of domestic violence or had other relationship problems.
Correctional samples of maternal filicide In the correctional population, filicidal mothers were frequently unmarried, unemployed abuse victims, who had limited education and social support 29 - 33 , 46 - 47 , 53 , Psychiatric samples of maternal filicide The filicidal mothers in psychiatric samples had frequently experienced psychosis, depression, suicidality, and prior mental health care 18 , 19 , 22 , 25 - 27 , 34 - 37 , 39 , 49 , 50 , Prevalence of filicidal thoughts A relatively high incidence of filicidal thoughts has been found in mentally ill women.
References 1. Homicide trends in the United States: infanticide. Lester D. Murdering babies: a cross-national study. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. Marks MN. Kumar R. Infanticide in England and Wales. Med Sci Law. Brookman F. Nolan J. A similar situation was found in Sitamarhi, Gumla and Purnia districts. In Bihar, it is primarily the dais, at the behest of the parents, who kill the newborn girls.
They receive an amount of Rs. It is only in rare instances that the child is killed after the first week Negi According to the survey done by George et al. In the entire study population, there were a total of 18 female infant deaths during the first seven days after birth George et al. Causes of female infanticide The lower status of women is one of the main reasons for these ruthless killings of infant girls. The daughter is considered to be a liability as her contribution to the family is temporary, up to the time she is married and sent to another family.
Harris-White cites poverty as one of the reasons for female infanticide Negi 12 ; and the Chunkath et al. In contrast, Adithi and Community Services Guild, has suggested that several communities, including the wealthy Gounder community, the landed caste in Salem District, Tamil Nadu, also practice female infanticide Negi Negi, in her report has mentioned that the society and families having used coercive tactics to ensure that female infanticide continues, limit the scope for outside influences in arresting the problem Negi 18 The view ofNegi and others who have researched this issue is that there is a social sanction for the deed.
The familial and social situations seem to outweigh personal reactions and therefore women opt to kill their new born girl children. The Indian Council for Child Welfare ICCW , Tamil Nadu, has mentioned that the feeling of guilt and trauma is almost absent in the community that perpetrates the practice, although there is gnef among the mothers Negi George el nl. They also came across one case of male infanticide just before the beginning of the study period Feb.
In case of the unwed mother, she tried to abort the pregnancy, which was unsuccesshl and committed infanticide when it was born. Maternal motivations for infanticide may be said, therefore, to vary on the basis of marital status George et al. The same study holds that the men generally take the decision to cany out the killing of the new-born babies with females being reluctant participants Navin One mother justifies her action by saying that they have hardly any access to medical care.
All deliveries take place at home and often the mother is left to bleed after a particular difficult childbrth. They categorically state that they do not wish to expose their grls to such harsh conditions. They feeljustified in killing their p l child so that she is saved from all the suffering she may have to undergo all her life Negi According to a study in Tamil Nadu, the fmt female infant is, in a majority of cases, not a victim of female infanticide.
The second female infant also has a chance of escaping infanticide. Thereafter the girl infants are at a high risk of facing infanticide. The surveyfinding by George and others mentions 19 female infanticides and 18 of the victims had birth orders greater than one and one involved a first-born daughter.
Each of these families had at least one surviving female child at the time and usually they had two. In their study they also found that no twin died as a result of direct infanticide, but they also say that they are subject to more neglect than a male twin and a female infant born after a set of twins girls is very likely to be killed George et al.
Negi after conducting interviews and discussions with people and NGOs closely working in Madurai district Tamil Nadu indicates the prevalence of a superstition that killing a new born girl child increases the probability of a male child being born in the family Negi Lack of scanning centres has also been cited as reason for infanticide. As people do not have this facility, they kill the child after it is born.
According to Soma Wadhwa, every year 50, female foetuses are aborted in India. These perpetrators of the deed are not very different from those who kill the baby after it is born.
The latter, she says, simply do not have enough money or facility to kill the baby when it is in the womb Wadhwa Another analyst, Kumarbabu observes that scanning centres exist even in the so-called remote, less-developedareas Negi Negi cites modernisation of the traditional way of cultivation as one of the reason for a decline in the overall status of women and increase in the forms of violence against them, for instance female infanticide.
Earlier women had the knowledge of how to cultivate seeds in the traditional way, when to start collecting them, when to sow them and how to store them. They also had the knowledge of, what kinds of fertilizers are necessary and should be used and so on.
With modemisation of agriculture, and given restrictions on female mobility in the public sphere, it was the man who started going out to government offices to get loans, bring seeds and pesticides and sell the crops, and overlookthe irrigation. Women became mere liabilitieswith their knowledge having become redundant and men aspired to marry only those women whose families could afford to offer more dowry Asia Pacific Hearing Modernisation has brought about these changes in the traditional systems and thereby lowering the status of women in the society Chunkath et al.
This has happened in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu where infanticide has a high occurrence. Conclusions It is very important that an attempt is made at eradicating the evil of female infanticide and foeticide. Social mobilization along with political will and widespread awareness generation can make a difference. It is very important to have community support and political will to bring about any change in the present situation.
Athreya Ventatesh and Sheela Rani Chunkath. Chunkath Sheela Rani and V. Chunkath Sheela Rani and Venkatesh Athreya. George Sabu, Rajaratnam Abel and B. Economic and Political Weekly, Karlekar Malavika, Negi Elizabeth Francina.
Death by social causes: Perceptions of and responses tofemale infanticide in Tamil Nadu.
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