Ayres on Infanticide in the United States

Susan Ayres (Texas A&M University School of Law) has posted A Crazy Quilt: Infanticide in the United States (100 Years of the Infanticide Act: Legacy, Impact and Future Directions (Karen Brennan & Emma Milne eds., 2023)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

This chapter builds on previous research to present a sampling of cases in the US, primarily in the twenty-first century, in order to show the harshness and disparity in criminal charges, defences and sentences. The broad term ‘infanticide’ is used for child-murder cases, and the more specific term ‘neonaticide’ is used for the killing of a child in the first 24 hours after birth. This chapter also describes the more recent use of genetic genealogy to solve cold cases of neonaticide. It concludes by considering how the absence of an infanticide offence and expanded defences results in an incoherent, unjust and irrational approach that ignores women’s vulnerabilities and fails to acknowledge the patterned nature of these cases.