Unwilling Mothers Unwanted Babies

This book traces twentieth-century Canadian criminal justice responses to women who kill their newly born babies. Initially, juries were reluctant to convict these women of murder since it carried the death penalty. The current "infanticide" law was adopted in 1948 to impose uniformity on legal practice and to ensure a homicide conviction. Even then, prosecutors faced considerable difficulties, but now, amidst media pressure, and with public attitudes possibly hardening, there are calls for the repeal of the infanticide law and the adoption of a draconian framework to deal with these cases. Kirsten Kramar provides an interdisciplinary feminist approach to the study of infanticide law, examining and linking historical, sociological, and legal scholarship. She examines in detail the legislative history and infanticide case law, as well as the range of relevant medical discourses from the past 100 years. By doing this, she provides a more nuanced approach to the debates around the broader issues of the medicalization of women’s deviance – one that reveals some of the political dangers inherent in hasty critiques of infanticide law, and shows the value of careful interdisciplinary analysis for studies in the history of law and socio-legal relations. Drawing on a wide range of original data sources (provincial and federal indictment case files, coroner’s records, reported legal cases, Hansard Parliamentary Debates, official crime statistics, media reports, and expert medical texts), Kramar presents a detailed picture of the developments, revealing the often ironic consequences of attempts to rationalize this area of law. An established feminist critique of "infanticide" as an inappropriately medical concept is shown to have been largely unhelpful, misconstruing the phenomenon’s history and significance, and lending support to calls for a "get tough" approach Unwilling Mothers, Unwanted Babies makes an important contribution to the international literature on maternal neonaticide as well as the medicalization of deviance, and will be of interest to those working in law, sociology, criminology, women’s studies, and gender history.

“Baby safe haven” laws, which allow a parent to relinquish a newborn baby legally and anonymously at a specified institutional location—such as a hospital or fire station—were established in every state between 1999 and 2009. Promoted during a time of heated public debate over policies on abortion, sex education, teen pregnancy, adoption, welfare, immigrant reproduction, and child abuse, safe haven laws were passed by the majority of states with little contest. These laws were thought to offer a solution to the consequences of unwanted pregnancies: mothers would no longer be burdened with children they could not care for, and newborn babies would no longer be abandoned in dumpsters. Yet while these laws are well meaning, they ignore the real problem: some women lack key social and economic supports that mothers need to raise children. Safe haven laws do little to help disadvantaged women. Instead, advocates of safe haven laws target teenagers, women of color, and poor women with safe haven information and see relinquishing custody of their newborns as an act of maternal love. Disadvantaged women are preemptively judged as “bad” mothers whose babies would be better off without them. Laury Oaks argues that the labeling of certain kinds of women as potential “bad” mothers who should consider anonymously giving up their newborns for adoption into a “loving” home should best be understood as an issue of reproductive justice. Safe haven discourses promote narrow images of who deserves to be a mother and reflect restrictive views on how we should treat women experiencing unwanted pregnancy.

The killing of new-born children is an intensely emotional and emotive subject. The hidden nature of this crime has made it an area incredibly difficult subject area for historians to approach up until now. This work provides the first detailed history of infanticide in mainland Britain from 1600 to the modern era.

Fostering Nation? Canada Confronts Its History of Childhood Disadvantage explores the missteps and the promise of a century and more of child protection efforts by Canadians and their governments. It is the first volume to offer a comprehensive history of what life has meant for North America’s most disadvantaged Aboriginal and newcomer girls and boys. Gender, class, race, and (dis)ability are always important factors that bear on youngsters’ access to resources. State fostering initiatives occur as part of a broad continuum of arrangements, from social assistance for original families to kin care and institutions. Birth and foster parents of disadvantaged youngsters are rarely in full control. Children most distant from the mainstream ideals of their day suffer, and that suffering is likely to continue into their own experience of parenthood. That trajectory is never inevitable, however. Both resilience and resistance have shaped Canadians’ engagement with foster children in a society dominated by capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal power. Fostering Nation? breaks much new ground for those interested in social welfare, history, and the family. It offers the first comprehensive perspective on Canada’s provision for marginalized youngsters from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Its examination of kin care, institutions, state policies, birth parents, foster parents, and foster youngsters provides ample reminder that children’s welfare cannot be divorced from that of their parents and communities, and reinforces what it means when women bear disproportionate responsibility for caregiving.

This book provides the first comprehensive and detailed analysis of the Infanticide Act and its impact in England and Wales and around the world. It is 100 years since an Infanticide Act was first passed in England and Wales. The statute, re-enacted in 1938, allows for leniency to be given to women who kill their infants within the first year of life. This legislation is unique and controversial: it creates a specific offence and defence that is available only to women who kill their biological infants. Men and other carers are not able to avail of the special mitigation provided by the Act, nor are women who kill older children. The collection brings together leading experts in the field to offer important insights into the history of the law, how it works today, the impact and legacy of the statute and potential futures of infanticide laws around the world. Contributors consider the Act in practice in England and Wales, the ways it has been portrayed in the British media and justifications for and criticisms of the provision of special treatment for women who kill their infants within a year of birth. It also looks at the criminal justice responses to infanticide in other jurisdictions, such as Australia, Ireland, Sweden and the United States of America.

Robson Crim is housed in Robson Hall, one of Canada's oldest law schools. Robson Crim has transformed into a Canada wide research hub in criminal law, with blog contributions from coast to coast, and from outside of this nation's borders. With over 30 academic peer collaborators at Canada's top law schools, Robson Crim is bringing leading criminal law research and writing to the reader. We also annually publish a special edition criminal law volume of the Manitoba Law Journal, providing a chance for authors to enter the peer reviewed fray. The Journal has ranked in the top 0.1 percent on Academia.edu and is widely used. This issue has articles from a variety of contributing authors including: Anna Tourtchaninova, Brendan Roziere, Michelle I. Bertrand, R.C.L. Lindsay, Jamal K. Mansour, Jennifer L. Beaudry, Natalie Kalmet, Elisabeth I. Melsom, Christopher Totten, Sutham Cobkit, Ryan Mullins, John Burchill, Celeste McKay, David Milward, Leah Combs, Russell C. Smandych, Raymond R. Corrado, and Scott Mair.

As a distinct scholarly contribution to law, feminist legal theory is now well over three decades old. Those three decades have seen consolidation and renewal of its central concerns as well as remarkable growth, dynamism and change. This Companion celebrates the strength of feminist legal thought, which is manifested in this dynamic combination of stability and change, as well as in the diversity of perspectives and methodologies, and the extensive range of subject-matters, which are now included within its ambit. Bringing together contributors from across a range of jurisdictions and legal traditions, the book provides a concise but critical review of existing theory in relation to the core issues or concepts that have animated, and continue to animate, feminism. It provides an authoritative and scholarly review of contemporary feminist legal thought, and seeks to contribute to the ongoing development of some of its new approaches, perspectives, and subject-matters. The Companion is divided into three parts, dealing with 'Theory', 'Concepts' and 'Issues'. The first part addresses theoretical questions which are of significance to law, but which also connect to feminist theory at the broadest and most interdisciplinary level. The second part also draws on general feminist theory, but with a more specific focus on debates about equality and difference, race, culture, religion, and sexuality. The 'Issues' section considers in detail more specific areas of substantive legal controversy.