The Sad Subject of Infanticide

Law, Medicine and Child Murder, 1860-1938

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12282932
AutoresTony Ward (0000-0002-6292-2364, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año1999
Volumen8
Número2
Páginas163-180
Fecha de publicación1999-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial & Legal Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0964-6639 • E-ISSN: 1461-7390
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/096466399900800201
OpenAlexW2086823619
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas29

The (English) Infanticide Act 1922 created a partial defence to murder for a woman who killed her newly born child while the balance of her mind was disturbed as a result of giving birth. Prior to the Act, psychiatric defences were comparatively rare where the victim was new-born. Only in 1938 was the law extended to cover cases where the mother was likely to be diagnosed as suffering from puerperal or lactational insanity. The relationship between law and medical knowledge underlying this legislation is too complex to be captured by a simple notion of ‘medicalization’, and in some respects fits better with the account of law/science relations offered by autopoiesis theory. That theory, however, is much less satisfactory in its view of the role of lay knowledge and morality in the development and application of the law

Criminal law · Criminology · Insanity · Legislation · Medicalization · Political science · Psychiatry · Sociology · Subject (documents · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Law · Psychology