The Sad Subject of Infanticide
Law, Medicine and Child Murder, 1860-1938
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12282932 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tony Ward (0000-0002-6292-2364, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 163-180 |
| Publication date | 1999-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social & Legal Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0964-6639 • E-ISSN: 1461-7390 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399900800201 |
| OpenAlex | W2086823619 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 29 |
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
Remaking the Medico-Legal Scene
Lethal Violence in Ireland, 1841 to 2003
«Den feberagtige, halvt utilregnelige Forfatning, hvori fødselen hensætter»
Self, Others and the State
The Insanities of Reproduction
The Death Penalty’s Abolition and Infanticide’s Invention
A Fine Mixture of Pity and Justice
Making Up Excited Delirium
Canadian Infanticide Legislation, 1948 and 1955
Madness and crime
A Shocking State of Domestic Unhappiness’
The Ties That Bind
Infanticide, Religion And Community in the British Isles, 1720–1920
A View You Won’t Get Anywhere Else”? Depressed Mothers, Public Regulation and ‘Private’ Narrative
"Real" Mothers for Abandoned Children
Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England
Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1
Deviance and medicalization
Tainted Souls and Painted Faces
Regulating Womanhood
The New Cultural History
Women Defendants in Magistrates' Courts
Law, Common Sense and the Authority of Science
Gender, Crime and Punishment
Law as an Autopoietic System
Child‐Killing in English Law
Deadly Motherhood
How the Law Thinks
Infanticide and abortion in nineteenth-century Britain
Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England
Sex and class in Women's History
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,63 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2025 (24) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 15 |