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, or hypothermia. In some cultures they would drown the infants, and some used infants as sacrifices. Carthagians would sacrifice their infants to gods. Charred remains have been found in Charthagian archeological sites. Approximately 20,000
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Infanticide was rare and not socially accepted by the Jews.
Some early Christians practiced infanticide by exposing unwanted female infants. Church fathers warned against this because they believed that children that were exposed were more likely to be victims of incest and/or become prostitutes. In turn, they warned against having sex with prostitutes because they believed that it may result in a father having sex with one of his own children. However for Christians, as with the Jews, it was considered a criminal act.
Female infanticide has been accepted for centuries in many countries, and is more prominent in India and China than in any other countries around the world. It is illegal in India, however it is reported by Unicef that up to 50 million girls and women are “missing” in India as a result of systemic sex discrimination.
Infanticide occurs mostly in the poor, rural populations of India. Males are considered to be a source of income, and daughters are believed to cause economic burdens because of the high cost of weddings and dowries. Weddings can be very cost prohibitive in India. The average income is approximately $3500 per year-in U.S. dollars, and the average wedding costs on average is $35,000 (U.S. dollars). More and more common are the murders of women due to the fact that their dowry has not been paid.
In India, the use of ultrasound during pregnancy has
10), though he would occasionally posture to demands from concerned citizens who had heard rumors of strange and frightening rituals associated with certain groups(p. 15). While I cannot discount the possibility of some factions incorporating animal or human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism into their rites, there is a greater probability that these instances were misunderstood and misinterpreted, and the information passed to officials would be considered suspect as to the motive of the individuals spreading these scenarios. In my mind I pictured an innocent ceremony of infant circumcision as witnessed by an outsider to Christianity. How deviant might that look to someone from a culture that does not practice male genital mutilation? It would, no doubt, be horrifying if they had no understanding of, or exposure to, either the Jewish or Christian faith rituals, yet to other believers it was a natural part of initiating a child into the faith. Raising the infant into the air as an offering of a new life devoted to God might also be perceived as a barbaric and frightening sacrificial rite if one were not versed in the rituals of the Abrahamic faiths.
Our political views have been affected in “The Persecution of the Witches”. The United Nations Office of High Commissioner for human rights reported that the most of 25,000-50,000 were abandoned due to accusations. One of Nigeria’s most popular Pentecostal preachers, Helen Ukpabio, wrote that “if a child under the age of 2 screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan”. Kids were abandoned due to the fact that they cried at specific times during the night. This is considered to be pure evil. As the Bible has written, newborns are the purest kind of all human beings . Even in all literacy modes, babies are symbolized for innocence, new life, and happiness. The kids did not know anything about good or evil. Even then,
Since many women could not get the father to pay child support, pregnancy outside of marriages often lead to infanticide. Women could not afford to feed and care for these children. As infanticide rates increased, very strict and unforgiving laws were made to punish it. Mothers were required to report all pregnancies. If they did not,
Infanticide is defined as the crime of killing of a child within the first 12 months of living. In some cultures, infanticide is acceptable if the parents decided to kill the child for a “good” reason. A “good” reason” to kill a newborn child would be because that child was born with a deformity, born out of wedlock, or if the children poses some type of “curse” (superstition) if they come out as twins. In different societies, this practice is standard and parents that commit this type of murder does not get criminally penalize.
One in four girls in India does not live past puberty due to gendercide, according to The Invisible Girl Project. India is one of the countries with the highest gendercide rates. Although many are aware of the violence against females, the majority does not act against it. Those who do act against it do not succeed because it is a problem incorporated in the roots of societal beliefs. Gendercide has been occurring for centuries in India and continues as a cycle of violence against females. Mass killing of females has been proven to only hurt society. The abortion and elimination of females because of cultural discrimination in India continues the cycle of gendercide.
Abortion is a controversial issue debated by many. While state and federal governments differ on laws for this issue, nothing changes the fact that innocent unborn lives are being murdered. Some states are taking into account these heinous acts and creating laws to stop them. Missouri is one of the states that are trying to protect the rights of these unborn lives; therefore House Bill 131 has been introduced to regulate the abortion process in hopes to decrease the amount of lives sacrificed.
Infanticide: To kill children that is not mine. In order to let my own children have enough resources to use, I have to kill the children that are not mine, because they do not have my genes.
The discrimination of a female in the developing Indian society begins at the determination of sex. Compared to their male counterparts, at the determination of the fetus, females are more susceptible to being aborted by the mother. According to T.V.Sekher and Neelambar Hatti: “recent studies of female infanticide, new biases in sex ratios at birth and infant and child mortality rates indicate that extreme forms of daughter discrimination resulting in death have persisted (Miller 1981: Coale and Bannister 1994)” (Sekher, Hatti). This discrimination is acted through many forms during early life. Discrimination can be represented by choice infanticide and/or sex-based abortion. Within developing India there is a low
Gendercide affects nearly every family in India and China due to the preference of sons over daughters (It’s A Girl). Male privilege is a prominent reason for the disappearance of millions of girls. Peggy McIntosh states in her article on male privilege that “men have unearned advantages... [and] that unearned privilege has not been good for… societies development, or that privilege systems might ever be challenged and changed” (87). It is because of this male privilege phenomena that mothers are forced to choose between their desire to nurture their new baby which is a part of their natural mothering instinct or ending the suffering of their daughter before it begins (CITATION FOR MOTHERING SECTION). If this continues to
In conclusion, infanticide can be portrayed as a major source of mortality, there is a belief that can affect parenting behaviors in primate’s social systems. Despite the utilitarian importance, if infanticide is likely in specific circumstances and if a specific conduct minimizes their event, there is a desire to support this conduct. The idea remains controversial for primates; however, data collected shows that killing babies can have a benefit for the primate’s evolutionary advantage.
Female infanticide is not easily talked about. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion in India have been the subject of much attention in recent years. Many people believe that in ancient Indian traditions, female infanticide is to
Jesus' teachings concerning children/family were faithfully followed by the early church, which believed that to receive a child in the name of Christ was to receive Christ Himself. Admonitions against the pagan practices of abortion and child abandonment were found in the earliest Christian writings. The Epistle of Barnabas commanded: Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born. Thou shalt not withdraw thy hand from thy son, or from thy daughter, but from their infancy thou shalt teach them the fear of the Lord.
Akira’s expression simply turned into something that said ‘Oh, he told you that too.’ before he replied. “Yes, I don’t want people risking children when there’s plenty at the adoption center. It’s cruel. Everyone knows this, everyone who wishes to engage in a relationship with a human is informed of this and I will help them in any way I can, but I won’t allow them to risk children lives.” (-- removed HTML --)
The history of such killings in India has its roots rooted deep since the time of partition of the country between the years 1947 and 1950 when many women were forcefully killed so that family’s honor could be preserved. The influence of religion
Assuming there should be even numbers of males and females in the human population, there are 150 million women missing, which is greater than the sum of all deaths from every civil conflict and genocide of the 20th century(The Village). This may possibly be the biggest human rights crisis ever, yet nobody knows about it(The Village). Female foeticide and infanticide are the main perpetrators of this injustice. Female foeticide is the sex-selective abortion of girls in the womb, while female infanticide is the sex-selective homicide of an infant under one year of age(Chawla). This heinous and cruel murdering of female fetuses and infants is rampant in India, China, and North Korea; however, the Compassion organization helps save the lives of many young girls through programs such as Mercy, one of their Child Survival Programs.