Talk:Infanticide/Archive 1

Long section of 2002 exchanges

In many ancient cultures, including those of ancient Greece, Rome, India, China, and Japan, harsh conditions or cultural mores occasionally resulted in the harsh choice to end the lives of newly-born infants.

Occasionally? I'm not sure it was as rare as all that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.182.1 (talk • contribs)

Alas, you're probably right. I seem to recall that it was standard practice for Roman infants to be brought before the paterfamilias, who would then decide whether the kid was to be exposed or not... but I don't trust my recollection enough to put it in the article. The topic really deserves a thorough discussion - which I don't have the expertise to provide, alas. -- April

The patriarch of all Jews, Abraham himself, is recorded in Genesis as being ordered by God to kill his son Isaac. So I don't think the ancient Jews can have been that much opposed to infanticide. Bear in mind that much post-classical writing about the classical era was written by early Christians who regarded all pre-Christian beliefs as heretical and, like the Jews before them (remember the Moloch story?) were eager to paint their enemies as evil beyond measure. --Tony Sidaway 23:06, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

erm, Isaac was hardly an "infant" when Abraham was tested by God. 68.237.98.55 01:50, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't be bothered to dig up sources at this time but I'm pretty sure it's commonly held amongst relevent exprets that the Abraham story was the result of the Jewish rejection of human sacrifice and is supposed to be symbolic of that rejection. 12:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.200.55 (talk)

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Something I'd like to integrate into the article somehow:

[throughout history, only women took care of children]

“ The problem with having only women raising children is that parenting is an emotionally demanding task, requiring considerable maturity, and throughout history girls have grown up universally despised. When a girl was born, said the Hebrews, "the walls wept."59 Japanese lullabies sang, "If it's a girl, stamp on her."60 In medieval Muslim cultures "a grave used to be prepared, even before delivery, beside the woman's resting place [and] if the new-born was a female she was immediately thrown by her mother into the grave."61 "Blessed is the door out of which goes a dead daughter" was a popular Italian proverb that was meant quite literally.62 Girls from birth have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution-the projected hatred of adults-and were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished, raped and neglected than boys. Girls in traditional societies spent most of their growing up years trying to avoid being raped by their neighbors or employers and thereby being forced into a lives of prostitution. To expect horribly abused girls to magically become mature, loving caretakers when as teenagers they go to live as virtual slaves in a strange family simply goes against the conclusions of every clinical study we have showing the disastrous effects of trauma upon the ability to mother.63 ”

[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

The point that childrearing is an emotionally demanding task often left to women who may also have inadequate social and emotional support/resources is an interesting and important point. But it is wrong to state that "Girls from birth have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution-the projected hatred of adults-and were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished, raped and neglected than boys." This is true of many societies but probably not most and most definitely not all. By the way, where do "the Hebrews" say that the walls weep when a girl is born? I am suspicious of the other quotes too, as they are taken out of context -- although I do get the general point, and think it is important. SR —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs)

59. Barbara Kaye Greenleaf, Children Through the Ages: A History of Childhood. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 7.

Funny, this does not look like a Hebrew text. An assertion that "When a girl was born, said the Hebrews, 'the walls wept.'" should be supported by a citation of a Hebrew document. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs)

You can look up the citations yourself next time.

The context of the quotes doesn't matter. Whether it was literal or figurative, it represents the wishes of people in those time periods. And we know from independent evidence that female children were despised. For example, in ancient Greece, almost no families raised 2 daughters. I'm sure they raised sons though. The evidence is so overwhelming (coming from multiple sources throughout history), that I wonder how you can question the fact.

Also you missed one point. Parenting wasn't "often" left to women. It was always left to women. It's only very recently (this century only), and then only in advanced societies, where parenting is "often" left to women. This point is discussed in detail in the sections preceding the one I quoted above. -- ark

Later on, there is a whole section on 'Infanticide as Child Sacrifice' at [2]:

“ Although poverty played some part in this holocaust of children, it is doubtful if it was the main cause of child deaths. In the first place, the cost of bringing up a girl is no more than the cost of bringing up a boy, so the differential infanticide rates are certainly parental choices. When, for instance, Arabs dug a grave next to the birthing place of every new mother so "if the newborn child was a female she could be immediately thrown by her mother into the grave,"105 it was likely hatred of girls, not poverty, that was the motive. Secondly, if scarce resources were the main cause, then wealthy parents should kill less than poor. But the historical record shows exactly the opposite: historical boy/girl ratios are higher among wealthy parents,106 where economic necessity is no problem at all. Even in early modern England, the infant mortality rates for wealthy children were higher than the same rates for ordinary farmers, day laborers and craftsman.107 Thirdly, many wealthy high civilizations such as Greece, Rome, China, India, Hawaii and Tahiti are very infanticidal, especially among their elite classes. As one visitor to Hawaii reported, there probably wasn't a single mother who didn't throw one or more of her children to the sharks.108 There were even societies where virtually all newborn were killed to satisfy their overwhemling infanticidal needs, and infants had to be imported from adjoining groups to continue the society.109 Finally, many nations-like in Japan until recently-kill their children selectively in order to balance out an equal number of boys and girls, a practice called mabiki, or "thinning out" the less promising ones,110 again revealing a quite different motive than the purely economic. It is most certainly not economics that causes so many depressed women on the delivery tables even today to implore their mothers not to kill them after they have given birth.111 Women since the beginning of time have felt that their children "really" belonged to God-a symbol of the grandmother, and that "the child was a gift that God had every right to reclaim."112 When killing her child, therefore, the mother was simply acting as her own mother's avenger.

[two more paragraphs, one of them not so relevant, the other very relevant]

Opposition by society to infanticide was negligible until modern times. Jews considered any child who died within thirty days after birth, even by violence, to have been a "miscarriage."122 Most ancient societies openly approved of infanticide, and although Roman law, in response to Christianity, made infanticide a capital offense in 374 C.E., no cases have been found punishing it.123 Anglo-Saxons actually considered infanticide a virtue, not a crime, saying, "A child cries when he comes into the world, for he anticipates its wretchedness. It is well for him that he should die...he was placed on a slanting roof [and] if he laughed, he was reared, but if he was frightened and cried, he was thrust out to perish."124 Prosecutions for infanticide before the modern period were rare.125 Even medieval penitentials excused mothers who killed their newborn before feeding them.126 By Puritan times, a few mothers began being hanged for infanticide.127 But even in the nineteenth century it was still "not an uncommon spectacle to see the corpses of infants lying in the streets or on the dunghills of London and other large cities.128 The English at the end of the century had over seven million children enrolled in "burial insurance societies;" with the infant mortality rate at 50 percent, parents could easily collect the insurance by killing their child. As one doctor said, "sudden death in infants is too common a circumstance to be brought before the attention of the coroner...Free medical care for children was refused...'No, thank you, he is in two burial clubs' was a frequent reply to offers of medical assistance for a sick child. Arsenic was a favorite poison..."129

”

• A Jewish firstborn child must be redeemed after 30 days of life. Not much more truth is found in your text concerning this matter. In Judaism, a child is a human the moment it is half-emerged (some say that only the head needs to emerge) from within his or her mother. From that moment almost anything must be done to save the child's life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.78.122 (talk • contribs) [2006 comment]

A lot of what this author says is extremely radical and controversial (though that doesn't mean it's any the less authoritative). What I'm quoting is neither radical nor controversial, at least for anyone acquainted with history. Widespread and routine infanticide are very well documented. And certainly, one can't understand ancient history without it.

I don't like to quote so extensively but I prefer to do it here than in the article. – ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

Let's be very clear about how "Loving" infanticidal people are towards children. They're not! Anyone who reports them as such is delusional. It's that simple.

Now, the proof of this is only slightly more complex.

1. do the infanticidal parents' touching of the infants differ in any way from a dildo? No.
2. do the infanticidal parents pay attention to the needs of the infant or child? Absolutely not.
3. do the infanticidal parents even look in the eyes of the infant or child? No.

From these considerations alone, one must conclude that the anthropologists involved are hallucinating. Or seriously deluding themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

Why was the section on the Chinese situation redundant. The notion that female infanticide is common in China is common enough that it bears some discussion about why demographers don't think it is common. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)

Which is discussed on the one child policy page. IOW, redundant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

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Removed this statement.......

Infanticide can be deduced from very skewed birth statistics. The natural male to female birth ratio is slightly below 1:1. And the life expectancy of females is naturally greater than males. When a society has a male to female ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 in children or adults, infanticide is a safe conclusion.

There are areas of China and India which have extremely skewed birth rates which are due to sex-selective abortions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)

Slash and burn fuckers. Then mention abortion damnit! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.40.79 (talk • contribs)

Removed, Wetnursing was itself an infanticidal practice since the wetnurse usually killed her own child to leave milk for others'. This is a highly dubious claim; I'd like to see where it's supported in the literature. Given non-infanticidal child mortality rates in non-technological societies, the existence of wet-nurses is not in itself evidence of infanticide! In addition, some wet-nurses supported another family's infant and their own newborn simultaneously, though this practice sometimes left one or both infants short of full nutrition. -- April, Friday, July 19, 2002

Are you sure about that last sentence? My understanding is that, in nursing women, milk production increases or decreases according to demand. --Stephen Gilbert

To a certain extent, I think it does. We should also consider that, in many cultures with high infant mortality, wet nurses were sometimes mothers who had lost their own infants. Moreover, babies were generally nursed for longer periods in the pre-modern world, so a woman could wean one child and keep the milk flow by taking on another. JHK

The paragraph talking about infanticide through "killing nurses" is talking about the Victorian era, and excludes (perhaps not explicitly enough) such primitives as "non-technological societies". Additionally, since the high mortality rates in "non-technological" societies are due to infanticide one can hardly use those rates to excuse infanticide!

In primitive societies, nursing occurs for the sexual arousal of the mother, not the child's needs. In more advanced societies (say, Victorian era) nursing is considered dirty and foisted off on complete strangers.

From Evolution of Childrearing (Chapter 8):

“ The wetnurse herself was usually an infanticidal mother. The common practice was to require that she get rid of her own baby in order to nurse the stranger - termed "a life for a life" by parents in the past.215 Montaigne laments "Every day we snatch children from the arms of their mothers and put our own in their charge for a very small payment."216 Society thought this system fair, since "by the sacrifice of the infant of the poor woman, the offspring of the wealthy will be preserved."217 It is not surprising, then, that wetnurses were universally described as "vicious, slothful and inclined to drunkenness,"218 "debauched, indolent, superstitious,"219 guilty of "gross negligence...leaving babies...unattended when helping with the harvest...crawling or falling into the fire and being attacked by animals, especially pigs,"220 "hung from a nail like a bundle of old clothes...the unfortunate one remains thus crucified [with] a purple face and violently compressed chest."221 The wetnurses' superstitions included a belief "in favor of cradle cap and of human wastes, which were thought to have therapeutic value,"222 so infants were rarely washed and lived in their own feces and urine for their entire time at nurse: "Infants sat in animal and human filth, were suspended on a hook in unchanged swaddling bands or were slung from the rafters in an improvised hammock...their mouths crammed with rotting rags."223 Even live-in wetnurses were described as unfeeling:

When he cried she used to shake him-when she washed him she used to stuff the sponge in his little mouth-push her finger (beast!) in his little throat-say she hated the child, wished he were dead-used to let him lie on the floor screaming while she sat quietly by and said screams did not annoy her...224

Complaints by physicians that wetnurses let infants die of simple neglect were legion: "While the women attend to the vineyards, the infant remains alone...swaddled to a board and suspended from a hook on the wall...crying and hungry in putrid diapers. Often the child cries so hard it ends up with a hernia...turkeys peck out the eyes of a child...or they fall into a fire, or drown in pails left carelessly on doorsteps."225 Children were described as being "kept ragged and bare, sickly and starved...in terror of their nurse, who handed out blows and vituperation freely" or who "tied them up by the shoulders and wrists with ragged ends of sheets...face down on the floor...to protect them from injuring themselves while she was away...Never played with or cuddled...it is a holiday when they are taken for a walk around the room by the nurses..."226 Infants who are sent to "killing nurses" are described as being fed while the nurse croons, "Cry no more! Soon you will go, deté drago, soon...'Tis truly better that you go, dear infant...onto the lap of Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus."227 The destructive Mother of Jesus, who gave birth for him to be sacrificed, was never far away from the child. It is no wonder that well into the nineteenth century many areas had a two-thirds mortality rate of infants sent to wetnurse.228

”

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 6.43 (talk • contribs)

Problems with this. You're using shoddy scholarship to try to back up an unprovable claim. De Mause provides no analysis or discussion of his sources, merely a catalog of horrific quotes. We cannot tell the context, nor can we take them as representative. THe most they prove is that, in the early modern and modern periods (there's nothing here before the 17th c. I checked the citations), some wetnurses may have been infanticidal and were most likely abusive. There is nothing to support your assertions of this type of behavior as a norm or even a trend. Anybody can go through books and pick out quotes (even totally out of context) to make an argument. Since de Mause's work is criminally lax in scholarship, I suggest you try to use better sources. JHK

Are you also going to accuse Noam Chomsky of being "criminally lax in scholarship" because he doesn't provide full context with his 1000-per book quotes? There are simply too many quotes for it to be possible to provide full context, but then you're not interested in being reasonable, only in defending your position at all costs. – Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

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Just re-read "A Modest Proposal," and could see absolutely nothing that referred to rotting corpses of babies in the streets. The only reference was to children accompanying their mothers begging. This certainly makes me question the veracity of other statements in this article. Moreover, Swift was born at the time of a particularly virulent wave of the plague ... even if there were piles of corpses in his memory, I'd be hard pressed not to wonder if these were not the result of plague or epidemic -- both of which were common in Early Modern cities. Either way, Swift is certainly not Victorian, which is also something the article implied. JHK 12:28 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

My fault for the Swift ref, I took it out.

As for "plagues and epidemics", they make a useful cover for infanticide. My impression is the Victorians were infanticidal. It is a reasonable impression (for fuck's sake; Nazi Germany was infanticidal) and unless someone comes up with a specific period when parents stopped being infanticidal, I'll trust my impressions over the protests of some jerk living in denial.

I see no reason why I should work harder on this article than my lazy opponents just because the majority of people are idiots similarly living in denial. I am dealing with morons who refuse to accept that incest, infanticide and child abuse have EVER existed despite the massive amounts of evidence to the contrary. So when these morons grudgingly admit that these things did happen at specific points in time and in specific places, that simply isn't fucking good enough for me. I don't accept the judgement of idiots. So if no one here is reasonably intelligent, educated and open-minded, I'll say what conclusions can be supported from the evidence (which I don't feel the least need to spell out to you lazy bums). – Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

Hi Ark,

I have only been here at Wikipedia for a few months but I have found most people here to be pretty open minded when confronted with hard evidence. Can you give me a few clues or a summary of what you remember of the evidence so I can search for similar sources online?

BTW I would appreciate it if you could keep the obscenities down as my niece and nephew (who are minors) might join me here occasionally for homework research, composition practice, etc.

Thanks! user:mirwin

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[3] This might be a useful source. Unfortunately only an outline is available at this link. Chapter 30 addresses infanticide in a region of China. user:mirwin

Another fishy thing: In all the imprecations cast against wetnurses, there is no notice taken that Breastfeeding women don't get pregnant and that they can feed more than one infant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ortolan88 (talk • contribs)

Which only means they'd have more than one infant they were wetnursing at one time. None of them need be their own. Above all, the milk-production capacity of a woman is finite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

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I took this out until it can be verified, mostly because of my objections raised above. I am very uncomfortable relying on the very questionable work of what appears to be one social scientist -- especially one whose work is not really accepted by the mainstream.

Although infanticide became a capital offense in Roman law in 374 CE, offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted. The practice of infanticide was still widespread throughout the Middle Ages and the Victorian Era. Application of the law only started in the 1800s, and despite this, the rotting corpses of babies were a common sight in the sewers and dungheaps of large cities. As time passed, the methods of infanticide became more involved because societies started to recognize it as an abhorrent practice. One common method of infanticide involved sending children out to a wet-nurse known for killing children and then not paying the nurse the agreed upon amount for the upkeep of the child. A related form of indirect infanticide was known as baby farming and involved paying third parties for intentional neglect leading to the death of infants.

JHK

No, you took it out because you can't accept that infanticide occurred so close to the modern era. It makes you uncomfortable that you can't dismiss the entire thing to the grey mists at the dawn of human history.

The wet-nurse thing was obviously referring to the Victorian era, so counter-examples from hunter-gatherer tribes are not welcome.-- Ark —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark (talk • contribs)

No, Ark -- I am fully aware that we live in a society where people do horrible things to children. I am also aware that this has long been the case. There are plenty of records out there for at least the Victorian area on things like the treatment of children in workhouses, and they clearly indicate widespread abuse of minors and women. I removed what I did because I re-read Swift and the deMause article you used as sources. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a lot of stuff quoted out of context. Some of the sources, like Philippe Ariés, I've read -- he has written brilliant history, well-documented and respected. He's also written psychohistory which is mostly supposition based on scant evidence. If you want things to stay unchallenged, you've got to make sure they have recognizable merit. JHK

Hi, Ark. Welcome back. Your contribution to this subject has the potential to be very valuable. Also, bear in mind that how you present yourself in the talk pages makes a strong impression on others. We are impressed with solid scholarship, but we also enjoy a cordial atmosphere.

You may not be aware that phrases like "you can't accept" or "you can't dismiss" are taken personally. Now, if you and I were talking on the phone (or better, in person), it would be easy for me to perceive the gentle spirit behind the words. But, alas, we get only the bare text here.

I myself am very much against infanticide and child abuse, so anything you can do to expose these crimes in the article pages would be welcome to me. Let's discuss what we can each do to help each other make excellent articles on such worthy topics. Ed Poor 12:01 Aug 13, 2002 (PDT)

Hi Ed,

I ran a google.com advanced search on keywords (roman infanticide opium) Wikipedia came up at the top and the other links were pretty weak.

[4] Mentions the method of smearing a mother's breast with opium but cites it as in use among the upper classes of India. No mention of Rome. This makes me wonder if we have introduced an error in this statement:

"A practice described in Roman texts was to smear the breast with opium residue so that a nursing baby would die with no outward cause." If the Roman texts are describing a practice in India then perhaps we should say so. It would be nice if we had citations for the Roman texts and English translations. user:mirwin

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Found Lloyd Demause, "Foundations of Psychohistory", online at: [5] On page 26,

“ The history of infanticide in the West has yet to be written, and I shall not attempt it here. But enough is already known to establish that, contrary to the usual assumption that it is an Eastern rather than a Western problem, infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children was a regular practice of antiquity, that the killing of legitimate children was only slowly reduced during the Middle Ages, and that illegitimate children continued regularly to be killed right up into the nineteenth century.(110) ”

A lot of references at 110. For someone who is not going to attempt the history "here", he sure manages a lot of gory detail in the next couple of pages. user:mirwin

Did you note that most of his primary sources were read in translation, and that most of his secondary sources were from before 1940? Also, most of the primary source examples I've seen from this work are taken as representative of a society, when some of them (for example, the stuff about the dauphin, for instance) may well not have been. One has to remember that some people (Suetonius, for example) wrote to both discredit and to scandalize -- if the population at large were to disapprove, then should we take the reported actions as a norm? This is why I think we need to look beyond deMause for evidence to support Ark's arguments. De Mause is only one of thousands of people writing on child abuse and infanticide. Surely there must be other contemporary scholars out there? As an historian, I can see great gaping holes in deMause's use of sources. It doesn't make him wrong, but it certainly sets off warning bells -- if the scholarship doesn't stand up, then are the conclusions he draws really proven?

As to the dauphin thing -- if it's what I think it is, it's the primary source for a book by Philippe Ariés -- de Mause has basically taken the same passages (possibly from A's book without reading the whole) and recycled them. IIRC, the dauphin in question was the future Louis XIII. The book also discussed his toilet training in great detail. The problem is, this one record (from an observer, not the main subject) was not only used to draw a complex psychological portrait of the king. Moreover, much of what was said about Louis' childhood was assumed to have been the norm for children of the time -- which is kind of odd, considering that most people looking for social norms do not look at one person -- let alone the person at the top of the social pyramid -- and assume that it's normal. 'nuff said. JHK

Ms. Kemp, you make some excellent points. I will attempt to keep them in mind as I look for alternate sources to augment our arguments. user:mirwin

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[6] This is an applicable discussion of 5 primary Greek sources. The author argues strongly that the evidence does not support strong conclusions that infanticide practices involving birth defects were uniform and widespread. On the contrary, the discussion points out many reasons to suspect/conclude that many infants with abnormal development or defects survived to productive adult status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirwin (talk • contribs)

That's useful for Greek societies, but there are quite a few other cultures involved here. I remember from some folklore classes that in one culture, central African IIRC, twins were regarded as unlucky and were thus usually killed at birth. The "real" answer seems to be that many, many different factors came into play. -- April

To counter the argument, the following four references cited in that article that Mirwin points to support the concept that infanticide of children with birth defect was common in ancient Greece:

• D.W. Amundsen, 'Medicine and the Birth of Defective Children: Approaches of the Ancient World', in Euthanasia and the Newborn: Conflicts Regarding Saving Lives, Philosophy and Medicine 24, ed. R. McMillan et al. (Dordrecht 1987) 10, 13
• P. Carrick, Medical Ethics in Antiquity: Philosophical Perspectives on Abortion and Euthanasia (Dordrecht 1985) 102
• E. Eyben, 'Family Planning in Graeco-Roman Antiquity', AncSoc 11/12 (1980/1981) 15, 35
• W.L. Langer, 'Infanticide: A Historical Survey', History of Childhood Quarterly 1 (1974) 353-4.

The article itself doesn't argue against defect as a reason for infanticide, just that it did not occur in all or most cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -- April (talk • contribs)

Agreed. This is a better summary than the one I provided. user:mirwin

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[7] "Determining the sex of infanticide victims from the Late Roman era through ancient DNA analysis"

This synopsis describes archeological evidence that infanticide occurred in Rome and in this case was sex and perhaps commerce linked. Again it is a single instance with no way to quantify societal acceptance, practice or trends. user:mirwin

[8] This site looks like a pretty balanced treatment of information from various sources regarding infanticide in the Roman empire. It has translations of quotes from primary sources and some discussion of the societal context. Mixed implications. It also has a bibliography that is somewhat contemporary, ranging from 1966 to 1989.

My impression of its overall take is that infanticide occurred routinely and regularly but was not a popular or prevailing trend. It discusses a law that intended to incentivize the ruling class with rapid advancement for more kids, but the kids only had to survive eight or nine days. It also vaguely discusses some attempted epigraphics, demographics, and statistics and provides sources. user:mirwin

As an admitted non-expert in the field, what bothers me most about Ark's contribution is the following: (a) His contributions are all taken from the same single source, and that, as JHK points out, is a secondary, not a primary source. That's not background research, that's dogmatic upholding of one author's claims. (b) He has presumed only one explanation for various situations, where several have been proposed, and apparently does not wish any coverage given to opposing views. That's against the NPOV policy. (c) He uses name-calling, baseless accusations, and downright rudeness in dealing with fellow contributors, whose sole fault seems to be editing his articles or objecting to his points. That's against Wikipetiquette. Thus, if Ark feels that his viewpoint is not being adequately represented, I suggest he (a) unearth other sources, preferably primary ones, in its defense; (b) allow space for contrary positions to be included in articles without complaining or removing it; (c) use reasonable courtesy in discussing the proper balance of elements in the article. That is, I think, a more productive approach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by -- April (talk • contribs)

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Reverted back to a non-babies piled in the streets, wetnursing is infanticidal version until we can actually see some hard evidence. Just some actual sources other than deMause (or something based on deMause). Again, this is not because I don't believe infanticide didn't exist, but that I don't see evidence that it was as normal as was implied. My analogy -- 20-odd people were arrested last week for being part of a pedophile pornography ring. More upsetting to me was the fact that many of these people were the parents of the children being subjected to sexual abuse -- and they were apparently profiting from it financially. Many of these parents were in the US, but some were in other countries. The kind of reasoning so far demonstrated in the article might conclude that more Americans abuse their children in this way than do parents in other countries. Or that parents with access to the internet are more likely to be abusers. Or, considering the large number of abductions, rape, other sexual abuse, and sometimes killings of children present in the news over the past few months, sexual abuse of children is the norm in western society. I can't prove it, of course, but I think that that is probably NOT the case, i.e., it is not the norm, nor is it normative. However, it is certainly something of which we should be aware, and to which we as a society should respond and remedy. That latter, though, is my own opinion, and possibly not appropriate for an article. JHK

I am very disturbed by the number of times the phrase "non-Western" is creeping into this discussion. It seems as if someone is trying to argue here that there is a kind of "moral unfitness" of non-Westerners to raise children; an encyclopedia is definitely not the place for such arguments to be made, and it's very far from NPOV. The sad fact is that infanticide has taken place in all cultures, and the prevalence of it has been tied more to the level of technology than to any East/West divide. If "non-technological" is meant, why not use that? -- April

The problem of aborting females or killing girl babies (in so far as it actually exists) does seem to exist primarily in India and China, see The World; Modern Asia's Anomaly: The Girls Who Don't Get Born User:Fredbauder

The abstract only addresses abortion. Perhaps this paragraph should be relocated to abortion. The USA as a whole does not currently consider legal abortions infanticide. I am uncertain regarding prevailing English speaking attitudes. The article already incorporates this minority view by the reference link to abortion in the see also list. user:mirwin

From a previous version:

There are well-documented accounts of infanticide performed by hospital personnel in China immediately upon the birth of an out-of-quota child, to enforce the government's one child policy. The practice, although required by the government, is not widespread as over-quota mothers usually are forced to have an abortion long before bringing the baby to term. China requires all women of child-bearing age to take pregnancy tests at government clinics every 3 months.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs)

If this can be verified (I would accept a New York Times article reporting this) it needs to be in the article. If not official policy then it is simply crime in China. The implication that it is official government policy is not acceptable in the absence of some evidence. I doubt very much any evidence exists. My own hypothesis is that corruption expains any incidents as local officials try illegally to meet centrally issued quotas. User:Fredbauder

The New York Times may be an impractical source. I, for one, do not have a subscription. If multiple others do, then it is obviously very practical. 8) mirwin 18:05 Aug 16, 2002 (PDT)

A subscription to current articles is free, although one may also subscribe to a complete copy (including ads, etc) which is not free. The rub is articles more than 2 weeks old which cast $2.95 for the full text, although an abstract is free. BTW look for a piece next week on ABC evening new early next week on female infanticide. User:Fredbauder

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This sentence, from the opening paragraph, is hard to read:

In nearly all past societies certain forms of infanticide were considered proper, whereas in most modern societies the practice is considered immoral and criminal.

It seems to be trying to contrast past and present attitudes toward infanticide, saying that it was a lot more acceptable in the past but that it's widely condemned now.

Can anyone think of a better, more clear way to express this? --Ed Poor

Not to be argumentative, but I'd like to see some support that the decline of infanticide was paralleled by the rise in Christianity. That's a pretty strong statement, and given that no statistics are available from those times, it seems to be extremely subjective and non-neutral. -- April 21:38 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

2003 page break (arbitrary)

How come this article doesn't mention that the Jews were the only ancient people to be opposed to infanticide? (I've never heard the law that if a child dies within thirty days in Judaism its considered a miscarriage. In fact it makes no sense at all because circumcision is performed on the eighth day, meaning the covenant of the child with God is solidified) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.29.78 (talk • contribs)

Wet Nurse Infanticide Question

Seems doubtful to me the only experience of a wet nurse culture in recent times that I personally have is Saudi Arabia where many old Saudi's will refer to their milk brothe. The milk brother is the son of the wet nurse and is regarded as being equivalent to a matrilineal brother. I would have thought that infanticide would only be needed in a nutrition poor society.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordy (talk • contribs) [October 2004]

Customs

An editor summarized,

You can't "customarily" kill your firstborn, since you can only do it once.

regarding this sentence

In the Solomon Islands, some people customarily kill the first-born child -- and then adopt a child from another island, a practice that suggests that the causes of infanticide are more complex.

Am not an anthropologist, but aren't customs societal mores rather than personal habits, and aren't many of them performed only once in a lifetime? For example, it is customary in the west for first-time brides to wear white dresses. Cheers, -Willmcw 09:53, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Gmaxwell rewrote it to something more appropriate, for which I thank him. I meant that "customarily" generally means "habitually" rather than "according to custom". I didn't think the word was adding much, but it's fair enough to add it as Gmaxwell has. Grace Note 06:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Brieskow-Finkenheerd case

Should we add details of the find in Brieskow-Finkenheerd? It would appear to be one of the largest-scale infanticide cases known. BBC News. violet/riga (t) 10:23, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Links

Are we sure we want to link to the Pagans, Christianity and Infanticide article? The article is poorly written and inflammitory, also the subject is already covered in the "overview of ancient.." link.

Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about;

"To Christians, the infant had value. Whereas pagans placed no value on infant life, Christians treated them as human beings. They viewed infanticide as the murder of a human being, not a convenient tool to rid society of excess females and perceived weaklings."

"Yet so long as Christianity was an illegal religion, persecuted by the same culture that murdered their own babies, it had little chance of enacting policies against infanticide."

Jocosetad 17:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

This sounds like viewpoint discrimination. Wikipedia links to articles from many different perspectives and one that appreciates Christianity's role in outlawing infanticide is hardly out of bounds. If you are worried about offending "pagans," the article clearly refers to pagans of ancient Rome and Greece who did tolerate and often encouraged infanticide. I am putting it back in. Layman 01:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Non-human infanticide

I find it interesting that this article almost completely neglects non-human infanticide, especially that research done concerning infanticide in rodents and non-human primates. Some of the most seminal work on the topic has been done by researchers studying these animals. No mention is made of the sexual selection hypothesis, the genetic aspect of infanticidal tendencies, or even the research done in recent years on "deferred" infanticde in humans. The study of such an apparently aberent behavior involves decidedly more than human mothers killing their infants. For example, the sexual selection hypothesis (developed studying Hanuman langurs) expects that females will not kill infants, but rather that males will be the perpetrators, because a male will benefit (reproductively) if he kills an infant which is not his. I would recommend anyone interested in the topic look for books by Glenn Hausfater, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, or Carl P. van Schaik. Although they are primatologists, each has done interesting research on the subject and edited several well developed volumes that cover a range of research, from rodents to humans.

Tiggy

I agree with Tiggy that expansion is needed. I would also VERY much appreciate citation as infanticide by dolphins of all creatures seems just a bit mindblowing to some of us. Frankly it seems kinda unbelievable.

Pstanton 00:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Pro-infanticide

This article needs a better description of the philosophical issues surrounding infanticide (i.e., personal identity), and should have at least some mention of the arguments of Stephen Pinker and Michael Tooley. KSchutte 06:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

tacitus

bit of a slanted portrayal of his opinion on the practice. while it's true that his description of the jewish practice follows on a catalogue of Reasons Why We Hate Jews, there's a tamen, 'but/however' in between; it's not an uninterrupted conclusion. he also uses nearly the same language in the germania, in a positive context (a description of virtues, chiefly chastity and marital fidelity, set up in contrast to those of rome in his time), as an uninterrupted conclusion. the view that he finds the prohibition of infanticide perverse and disgusting certainly exists, but so does the view that the sentence in the histories is actually a grudging compliment (Salo Baron held it, for example). better, i think, just to provide the facts (including the undisputed one that he finds it remarkable—he makes no such comment on any other nations or tribes) and let people form their own opinions on how exactly he intended it. 65.95.37.193 18:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Women's rights?

How is the prohibition an improvement of that? Arrow740 08:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Right to live for women babies. --Aminz 08:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Women babies constitute a very tiny percentage of the population. Arrow740 22:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Female babies consitute roughly half the infants born. In any case, the decree that women were not be killed was based on the premise that women were just as honorable as men.Bless sins 00:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed as a POV claim from a sub-par source. Beit Or 21:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Scope of article

Rather disappointing to see a one line mention that it occurs in other species. Should this article should be moved to human infanticide or infanticide in human culture and a full biological treatment of infanticide in all animals be given, or should such as article be treated somewhere like infanticide (zoology). Biologists have borrowed the word from its normal use, and readers are probably more likely to expect an article on humans rather than animals in general. It is a term that applies to any other animal as well as humans, but there's not going to be as much content at least for a good while, and this article did have the name first. The comparison with cannibalism and cannibalism (zoology) is close, so I'll probably follow that terminology should I get the section up to a size worthy of its own article. Leave your thoughts on the matter if you like. Richard001 02:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with you that the comparison is close, and the human info is what most readers would be looking for. So I Support creation of separate infanticide (zoology) when there is enough material. BrainyBabe 12:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you've already created it.... BrainyBabe 12:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I plan to write a reasonable length article on the subject so I just went ahead and started a new one. There has been disagreement from User:Stemonitis at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Human focussed vs. general articles though, where I'm trying to get some guidelines created for issues like this. Richard001 01:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Infant euthanasia in the UK

The Infant euthanasia in the UK section seems to be incorrect. The reference link is broken, but other articles on the topic describe the Royal College as calling for debate on the topic, not endorsing a particular position. Athenastreet 15:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

If a reference only relies on an external link, and it is broken, feel free to challenge the material or change it to agree with other sources, just be sure to provide them. Richard001 22:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Throughout history section

I have removed "Abortion has a similar history." from the end of the first paragraph. There is no citation for the comparison, thus it is . More to the point, this article is about intentionally killing an infant. Mdbrownmsw 17:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia

I'm not muslim (if any reader is he/she may confirm), but I remember I once read there's a hadith (oral tradition stories about Muhammad's sayings and deeds) about prophet Muhammad once catching a man just seconds from interring (alive) his just-born daughter. The prophet asked him what crime had the girl committed to deserve the death penalty, to which the man couldn't answer. Then the prophet took that girl and forced that man to raise her, stating that it was the previous pagan way to kill baby-girls but not the desire of Allah. If there indeed exists this hadith then it proves 2 things: first, female infanticide did exist and was more or less widespread in ancient Arabia. Second, after Islam it was proscribed, at least legally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.244.69.177 (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Strange Redirect

I just typed in "I killed your baby" into Search as a joke, only to have this come up. Do we really need this redirect? microchip08 (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC).

Any variation of this I tried took me to a search page. I am adding a note to the user's talk page asking for clarification. - Mdbrownmsw (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Wait, now I found it. I'll speedy it. Thanks. - Mdbrownmsw (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Template now deleted. Don't understand why? microchip08 (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC).

My bad. I listed it as an AfD, needed to be a RfD. Fixed it. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 13:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Infanticide in the law

I'd be interested in knowing whether Infanticide is legally and practically (e.g. penalties imposed) different from murder in both developed and developing countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.113.248.20 (talk) 21:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Moved from Infanticide to Human Infanticide

This move, without discussion, is odd.

The editor asks "Why should it just be titled "Infanticide" when it only detals Huamn Infanticide?" The answer is simple: "Human Infanticide" is redundant.

"Infanticide is the practice of someone intentionally causing the death of an infant." Next, link to Infant: "In basic English usage, an infant is defined as a human child at the youngest stage of life..." "Human Infanticide" is similar to "Royal Regicide". Pending further discussion to the contrary, I'll move this back in a few days. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Add a notable source

I have just been reverted by User:Otolemur crassicaudatus who wrote in edit summary: "non notable anthropologist, do not deserve to be quoted, WP:UNDUE."

In fact, there are very few scholars who have published books on infanticide. One of these is Infanticide and the Value of Life in which Williamson contributed with a chapter. As far as I can tell, Larry S. Milner's book is the most complete on infanticide, and he cites the below quotation by Williamson, an anthropologist from the American Museum of Natural History, as an epigraph for his 629-page book:

Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.

If this is not a RS, please cite a RS as a rebuttal to the above claim. —Cesar Tort 23:57, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is a 'notable' anthropologist supposed to be? One that has their own article on Wikipedia? If so it might well be impossible to quote anybody in this article. I quoted both Glenn Hausfater and Stephen Emlen in the animal oriented infanticide article, and I'd probably struggle to find reliable sources to write about them. Richard001 (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

So do you think that it's OK to quote Williamson (see above) in the article? It's a well-known fact for academic researchers of infanticide that the subject is almost ignored. Look at the index of major treatises. I'd be all too glad to include the POV of anyone who refutes Williamson or the stats I added in the article. Believe me. However, are there any of them? If no valid reason is given, I think I'll revert. —Cesar Tort 02:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Present-day Western infanticide?

I myself know nothing about this subject except that it does indeed happen (often in teenage mothers), and I'm wondering why I see no mention of it at all in this article. If someone knows anything about it, perhaps they might put in a section about it. Thanks, --Iamthedeus (talk) 01:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, but estimates of infanticide among present-day, Western cultures (teenage mothers, etc.) is not as frequent as, say, infanticide among the tribes: as can be seen in the article's stats. The idea is to focus first on cultures where infanticide was not uncommon, nor an aberration to a society's standards. —Cesar Tort 09:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Granted, but could not both be covered? I'm not saying to get rid of what's here and replace it solely with an account of present-day Western infanticide, but rather I'm suggesting that it be at least mentioned, if not covered in some depth, in addition to what is already addressed in the article (that is, cultures where infanticide was not uncommon, as you said). —Iamthedeus (talk) 18:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

There's already a "Present day" section in the article which touches the subject of infanticide in the West and could be expanded. —Cesar Tort 18:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Bus as you say, it could be expanded. The "Present day" section only mentions Western present-day infanticide in one sentence (forgetting the bits about infant euthanasia): "The practice has become less common in the Western world". It would be really good if this could be elaborated upon; I would do it myself, but as I mentioned earlier, I know next to nothing about the subject. —Iamthedeus (talk) 21:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I do have some sources. But I'll add first data on more common infanticide. —Cesar Tort 21:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. —Iamthedeus (talk) 21:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Postpartum depression isn't related to child murder, postpartum psychosis is. These are related but are distinct. It's a hefty enough distinction that it should perhaps be fixed. Witchzenka (talk) 17:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Already fixed. —Cesar Tort 17:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Article has nothing about eugenic infanticide

This article has nothing about eugenic infanticide.Many eugenicists were also infanticides. The site [9] has a short text, about this subject.Agre22 (talk) 22:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)agre22

You may add sourced info, according to wp:rs. However, in a way this subject is mentioned in this section. —Cesar Tort 23:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Papua New Guinea

Someone who knows about this phenomenon may want to add something from this article about male infanticide as a means of avoiding war. Scary but worth adding. Malick78 (talk) 17:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Section on Islam

I removed several lines which apparently came from a well meaning source, but whose command of the language was a little shaky. Rather than paraphrase the original text and second guess its meaning, I deleted it. The section as it now reads is footnoted but rather thin.

Deleted material: "islam never give any message to kill and lost of any lost of human. wether its a girl or a boy. in islam all people everyone same .god made all people each one for some good reason and islam give message not to kill,message to let other survive other and complete their mision what they send here to complete for"

76.127.16.208 (talk) 04:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)Katella Gate

Sections on India and Hinduism - Who is watching over this article?

Who on Earth is watching this article? In a week there have been many modifications, some of them for the detriment of the article, like the India sections. I don't have time to watch the article but the additions are out of place (like the section in "Present day"), as well as the heading "South Asia" way above in the article. I am tempted to do a whole revert and take the incarnation of the article as I left it a week ago but I would need some consensus in this talk page about such drastic action. Thank you. Thantalteresco (talk) 00:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Awareoftypes has just edited the article but he seems to get it backwards. It's not the heading "India and Pakistan" the one which should be deleted (the one which he just deleted) but the heading "South Asia" (Why trying to avoid mention of India or Pakistan?). And this phrase about "demonizing Indians" strikes me as unencyclopedic. Again, who is watching this article? Thantalteresco (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not unencyclopedic. It provides valuable context to the allegations, which are a reactionary response to outsourcing of jobs to India from western countries.I find it interesting that India is the only actual country that is singled out for attack in this article and all other religions get contextualized representation except Hinduism, despite the fact that the cited BBC article clearly states that Hindu religious leaders condemn infanticide. Also, the so-called "recent" report from the UNICEF dates back to 1995. Claling it "recent" is part of the racist orientalism rampant in this decontextualized and vile hate-filled article that intentionally stereotypes and scapegoats non-European cultures as static and impervious to change. There is a clear racist bias at work here, and it's not going to work.Awareoftypes (talk) 13:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Nop! *All* cultures practiced infanticide, including Western cultures and the article makes it all too clear. There's no bias. And the heading should be "India and Pakistan". The editor who removed it seems to be saying he wants to hide the names of the countries. Thantalteresco (talk) 16:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Er, no. South Asia is the standard internationally accepted name of the region. My point is not that infanticide in South Asia not be given attention, it should, of copurse. However, while this racist article dismissively mentions infanticide in the west, it intentionally whitewashes it's practices in all regions except India and Southeast Asia, areas whose denizens don't have lobbyists and apologists on wikipedia eyewashing the article. Not only that, but the vile racist hate-filled article intentionally falsified, decontextualized and misrepresented sources to synthesize claims emphatically NOT made in the sources. Claims that I have proceeded to make more cognizant with the referenced content. Apparently, the vile hatemongers editing this article expected that all of it's readers would automatically be racist hatemongers and would never double check the sources, which is how most idiots use wikipedia . Well they were wrong.Awareoftypes (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Awareoftypes : I don't know what you are talking about. The article has big sections on the West during the Old World ("Greece and Rome", "Judaism", "Pagan European tribes"), and another section on Christianity and the Middle Ages in the West; as well as a section of present-day Western infanticide. I still think that the term "demonizing Indians" is unencyclopedic in mainspace (thanks for not adding "racist hatemongers" in article). If other editors are watching this page, could you comment on it please? Thantalteresco (talk) 18:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Vandalized article (e.g. Australia section)

Sorry about that, shld have explained properly: Broadly what I removed are unreliable sources (ie very old diaries etc. which date from when colonisation was underway aren't trustworthy), & more recent stuff: Frazer is a general work on mythology, not to be relied upon for specific information, Malthus way too old, nothing to do with the topic either so unreliable, Géza Róheim tho apparently having done research in Aust. is mainly a psychologist and what he's reporting is a very odd claim that needs better sourcing (he's probably the best of what I've removed, might be acceptable with corroborating sources). Re what I've left are sources from relatively recent anthropologists from respectable journals etc. (& Malinowsky in particular, one of the 'founding fathers of the discipline, difficult to argue with) which ideally are the kind of sources we would want, or relatively recent historians would also do. Again, sorry for the lack of explanation the first time, thanx. Misarxist 10:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

This is the massive section you removed:

According to Bronislaw Malinowski, who wrote a book on indigenous Australians in the early 1960s, "infanticide is practiced among all Australian natives." The practice has been reported in Tasmania, Western Australia, Central Australia, South Australia, in the Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Anthropologist Géza Róheim wrote:

When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure.

Family units usually consisted of three children. Brough Smyth, a 19th century researcher, estimated that in Victoria about 30% of the births resulted in infanticide. Mildred Dickeman concurs that that figure is accurate in other Australia tribes as a result of a surplus of the birthrate. Cannibalism was observed in Victoria at the beginning of the 20th century. The Wotjo tribe, as well as the tribes of the lower Murray River, sometimes killed a newborn to feed an older sibling.

Thomas Robert Malthus wrote that, in the New South Wales region, when the mother died sucking infants were buried alive with her. In the Darling River region, infanticide was practiced "by a blow on the back of the head, by strangling with a rope, or chocking with sand".

In Queensland a tribal woman could have children after the age of thirty. Otherwise babies would be killed.

The Aranda tribes in the Northern Territory used the method of choking the newborn with coal, sand or kill her with a stick.

According to James George Frazer, in the Beltana tribes in South Australia it was customary to kill the first-born.

Twins were always killed by the Arrernte in central Australia. In the Luritcha tribe occasional cannibalism of young children occurred.

Aram Yengoyan calculated that, in Western Australia, the Pitjandjara people killed 19% of their newborns.

In the 19th century the native Tasmanians were exterminated by the colonists, who regarded them as a degenerate race. Richard H. Davies (fl. 1830s - 1887), a brother of Archdeacon Davies, wrote that Tasmanian "females have been known to desert their infants for the sake of suckling the puppies", which were later used for hunting. Like other tribal Australians, when the mother died the child was buried as well.

I very much doubt that old sources aren't good sources. These practices have disappeared recently so you won't find them in new sources. I'll leave to other editors to revert this massive removal of sourced info. Thantalteresco (talk) 00:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Please note the rv I made [10] does not get rid of the whole section above, but removes outdated or otherwise dubious sources as per my explanation. Also these old sources they're not problematic because they're describing old practices, but because many/most of those authors aren't trusted anymore, and some also primary sources, which we shouldn't be using. We need more recently published anthropology, or history, (which does take into account the problem you mention) & those are the types of sources which I've left. Misarxist 09:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
• Unrelated: [11] IP 83.231.19.128, please don't revert across different sections in the one edit, changes to individual sections need to be discussed separately. Hence I've reverted that for now. Thanx Misarxist 09:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No time to discuss. Suffice it to say that this article has been basically vandalized by removing tons of data without proper discussion. I hope another editor, willing to spend some time discussing not only the Australia removal, but other removals -including grotesque changes even in the lead- will come forward. As I said, i've no time for that. Bye. 83.231.83.110 (talk) 22:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I've finally contacted Caesar Tort, the user on wikibreak who seems to have added most of the references and content of the article. Tort agrees with me that, although quasi-vandalism may be taking place by removing content without good reason, he's burnout of the "colossal energy sink" prevalent in wikipedia. Energy sink to argue to the end of the world for a single line. He's *not* planning to come back soon. This leads me to the above concern: why aren't there responsible editors watching over this article? I am new to wikipedia and cannot grasp the whys yet. 83.231.85.238 (talk) 14:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Infanticide or Abortion?

I'm surprised that this hasn't come up before. This article is written under the assumption that abortion (i.e., the intentional termination of a pregnancy) is synonymous with infanticide. The assumption is controversial and unnecessary. The inclusion of abortion statistics for North America, the introduction's oddly worded description of infanticide in developed nations, and other passages leave me to think that parts of this article exhibit a pro-life bias by lumping in the idea of abortion with that of infanticide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.219.33.255 (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I see that my observation has been accompanied by some wise pruning of the article, but given the lack of discussion and attention to the article's introduction, I have taken it upon myself to make the past two edits. My syntax could certainly use some polish, but I think these edits steer the article on a more accurate course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.219.33.255 (talk) 02:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Relevant?

Is the following passage mentioned in the "Pre-Islamic Arabian Societies" section relevant to the discussion of infanticide?

"The Qur'an also mentions the story, not intended as an example to be followed, of the killing of an unbelieving young man by khidr. This was done in order to preserve the young man's faithful parents from disobedience and ingratitude which the young man was destined to bring to their life (see 18:74; 18:80).[32]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.210.146 (talk) 00:09, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

NPOV - Australia

This section has been tagged with NPOV as the sourcing is from 1900 was based on theories that have since been discredited. Gnangarra 20:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Better, newer sources might be found on google books WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• http://books.google.com/books?id=f1rbNlhpCeIC&pg=PA149
• http://books.google.com/books?id=RiL-yE1QqP0C&pg=PA35
• http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6fof5hCew6wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA114

Um new and better sources for a discredited theory, yeah right. Ignoring how ludicres the suggest is the source refers[12] to only one group of people Dieri immediately after this group is quoted it it says infanticide was rare except during periods of food shortage conviently omitted from the article. And attributes it back to the old source, then look at the stats in the source population of 40,000 when the actual population is 517,000. A cursory check of the information even reviels that its seriuosly questionable at best. Gnangarra 10:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The section is pretty much 100% contested, so I have removed it. There are several similar sections making sweeping statements about "primitive people" or "natives" which date from a similar era; I have removed them also. This is not to say the rest is of an acceptable standard - indeed, I'd guess about half of the remainder may need to be trimmed to make this anywhere near an acceptable article following Wikipedia's expectations of quality, sourcing and prose. Looking at the French and German versions of this article may be of use. Orderinchaos 19:31, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've responded below. ---88.5.179.229 (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting research stuff

(This is actually restored from the talk page of a now-deleted article - but relates to exactly what Gnangarra is saying above.)

Nakata, Martin (1998) "Anthropological texts and indigenous standpoints" in Australian Aboriginal Studies (no.2) p3-12 is a very interesting read. The guy's a Research Fellow at the University of South Australia, who breaks down methodically, analyses and then demolishes some of the bizarre claims about infanticide in the Torres Strait.

"It is easy to understand from Haddon' compilation of other people's writings that, because of a limited food supply in the islands, there was a 'custom to kill' (d'Albertis, cited by Haddon 1908, 108) to control population numbers so 'to avoid the toil of having to provide food for them' (Gill, cited by Haddon 1908, 108). This explanation provides the basis for understanding why families were restricted to two children according to Gill (cited by Haddon 1908), or three if we take Murray's (cited by Haddon 1908) position. Once the reason and the need for infanticide is articulated in this way, it follows that the practice was an unwritten 'rule' (Murray, cited by Haddon, 1908, 108) of a people: that is, to not rear more than three children, to kill illegitimate children, to kill female babies at birth if there were too many children. Of all the cited texts, not one of Haddon's sources claims to have witnessed these practices. It is by contrast more difficult to make counter claims against so many citations of the occurrence of such practices.

He then goes on to quote various statistical and other studies at the exact same time, which Haddon himself cites, finding "that the average numbers in the families of above three children were respectively 4.8 and 5.7. Ignoring families of 0[children] or 1 [child], there is an average of 3.41 in the second generation and 4.18 in the third'". There was "no statistical evidence to support any claim that could amount to a practice either of foeticide or infanticide in the Torres Strait."

And this is just one piece of research taken apart by one scholar, and not in the distant past. Liz Conor (University of Melbourne, 2007), Judith Allen (1982, 1990), Lisa Featherstone (2006), Katherine Ellinghaus (2003) are just some of the scholars who criticised the earlier research on various bases. We should be very careful about citing old sources as if they were factual generations of the most rigorous science. Orderinchaos 19:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have responded below. ---88.5.179.229 (talk) 16:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive242#Question re Spanish

In continuation of the above request I searched a little around and found the following resource helpful:

• Hausfater, Glenn (2008). Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives. Aldine Transaction. ISBN 9780202362212. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help).

In fact, this book's section on human infancticide (p427+) provided a better overview than the current Wikipedia article, which is sprawling, and attempts to do far too much. The article has grown through accumulation of many minor edits, without overall guidance and structure. In particular, I liked the book's structured approach to the topic and the attempt first to identify the concept: is it the general destruction of offspring (not necessarily young), is it the destruction of own infant offspring, etc. Then the functional forms: is it resource exploitation (eg. for nutritional value), is it resource competition (dominant groups weakens subordinate groups), etc. Then the various veils, is it construed as sacrifice, etc. Listing of infanticide practices per culture/region/country appears to be recipe for becomming a battleground. It seem to have taken place in every culture at all times, but in Egypt there is no evidence of infanticide(?). OK, there is an infanticide Act in the UK - is that info relevant or even appropriate in the lede?, such Acts are everywhere. Perhaps spinning out some of the info (of which most is quite well sourced) into subarticles would make sense to improve overall readability and article stability. I will tag the article as in need for expert attention on overall structure. Australia's aboriginals must have practiced infanticide, as just about everybody else has done. It should be possible for the article to mention this, without accusations of being a tool for ultra right-wing extremists. It may not be necessary to go into details about the human ingenuity in finding ways to do so, but some sourced statements should be ok. Power.corrupts (talk) 15:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Other than one source (non-Egyptologist) that indicates it may have been a rare event[13] I haven't been able to find as yet evidence of infanticide in Ancient Egypt other than Greco-Roman period when the colonizers brought their practices with them. Strabo thought it odd that the Ancient Egyptians insisted that all children be reared.[14]. Diodorus indicates infanticide was a punishable offence.[15]. Taam (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that PC - I agree that the book you located and others like it should be used to reconstruct the article. My reason for wanting to see the particular section removed last month was not the claims as such, but the poor sourcing for them. It's been a well known tool of the right wing for years to demonise "native peoples" by reference to works written well before the evolution of the social sciences to a solidly academic level and a professional discipline, with no mention of the extensive refutation of those works and their methods in more recent scholarship (or even denial that such exists). The sourcing was similar for other countries, but as I have no knowledge of their particular situations I opted to leave those in, only because I prefer to work with what I know. On the basis of the sources available today, no evidence exists for it having occurred either then or now in Aboriginal societies, which has bearing on whether the specific claim can be made in this article (as all content esp controversial should be sourced). However, I think also that infanticide and cannibalism have at different stages of history been universal out of sheer necessity, particularly in harsh climates and locations where food sources are rare and where people tend to travel in large family or community groups, and in the case of infanticide, also as a form of warfare (hell, that much is even described in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible repeatedly). Getting rid of the unbalanced specific claims and addressing the issue as a general phenomenon would go a huge way to improving the encyclopaedic merit of this article. Orderinchaos 22:45, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

This has been addressed below. ---88.5.179.229 (talk) 16:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed sections

Oceania

Infanticide among the autochthone people in the Oceania islands is widespread. In some areas of the Fiji islands up to 50% of newborn infants were killed. In the 19th century Ugi, in the Solomon islands almost 75% of the indigenous children had been brought from adjoining tribes due to the high incidence rate of infanticide, a unique feature of these tribal societies. In another Solomon island, San Cristóbal, the firstborn was considered "ahubweu" and often buried alive.

As a rationale for their behavior, some parents in British New Guinea complained: "Girls [...] don't become warriors, and they don't stay to look for us in our old age."

Australia

According to the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski's book on indigenous Australians, "infanticide is practiced among all Australian natives." Brough Smyth, a 19th century researcher, estimated that in Victoria about 30% of the births resulted in infanticide. Mildred Dickeman concurs that that figure is accurate in other Australia tribes as a result of a surplus of the birthrate. In Queensland a tribal woman could have children after the age of thirty. In other places, babies would be killed. The Aranda in the Northern Territory used the method of choking the newborn with coal, sand or kill her with a stick. Twins were always killed by the Arrernte in central Australia. Aram Yengoyan calculated that, in Western Australia, the Pitjandjara people killed 19% of their newborns.

Polynesia

In ancient Polynesian societies infanticide was common. Families were supposed to rear no more than two children. Writing about the natives, Raymond Firth noted: "If another child is born, it is buried in the earth and covered with stones".

Hawaii

In Hawaii infanticide was a socially sanctioned practice before the Christian missions. Infanticidal methods included strangling the children or, more frequently, burying them alive.

Tahiti

Infanticide was quite intense in Tahiti. Methods included suffocation, neck breaking and strangulation.

Two more removals

Lucien Lévy-Brühl noted that, because of fear of a drought, if a baby was born feet first in British East Africa, she or he was smothered. The Tswana people did the same since they feared the newborn would bring ill fortune to the parents. Similarly, William Sumner noted that the Vadshagga killed children whose upper incisors came first.

It has been estimated that 40% of newborn babies were killed in Kyūshū.

---

In The Child in Primitive Society, Nathan Miller wrote in the 1920s that among the Kuni tribe every mother had killed at least one of her children. Child sacrifice was practiced as late as 1929 in Zimbabwe, where a daughter of the tribal chief used to be sacrificed as a petition of rain.

88.5.179.229 (talk) 16:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting history by blanking out parts of Australia’s collective memory

In response to the above sections, here, here and here, in the libraries of the city where I live there are practically no books in English. Hence I cannot properly refute the claim that infanticide didn’t happen in ancient Australia or that it was very rare.

But I know a lot about infanticide in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica and in the pre-Hispanic Canary islands. For centuries the infanticidal evidence remained indisputable in Spanish-speaking scholarship. Only in the 20th century some people questioned the infanticidal evidence in the case of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Those who disputed the evidence were concerned (just like those concerned about present-day Australian natives) about the human rights of present-day Amerindians. In other words, the textual evidence in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica was questioned for political reasons. Nonetheless, in the last decade archaeologists with hard evidence (infant skeletons in the Mesoamerican temples as well as ancient houses) have proven beyond doubt that the writings of the 16th century Spaniards were correct: infanticide and child sacrifice was indeed practiced before the European conquest. Confronted with hard evidence, even those who zealously advocate for the rights of Amerindians had to acknowledge the historicity of infanticide before the Conquest.

Let’s now go back to Australia. My educated guess is that, even though there are no English libraries in the town where I live (to prove my case beyond reasonable doubt), this is exactly the case with Australian infanticide.

The "race" card that is being played in some Wikipedia articles about this very subject is rhetorical. In the Canaria Islands for example the tribes conquered by the Spaniards were more Aryan, i.e., whiter and blonder, than the Iberian Spaniards who conquered them (in some parts of Spain there was blood mixture with the Moors before the Reconquista). Nonetheless, the whiter, Aryan Canarian natives practiced infanticide just as any other tribe in the past. Therefore, reporting the infanticidal practice in Wikipedia has nothing to do with "racism" (if the Australian "far right" uses those reports to "demonize" the tribes it's not the Wikipedians’ business. WP reports what scholars say: even the ugly stuff).

The removed sources, posted in the above section, were old but scholarly. In fact, Geza Roheim saw actual infanticide and infant cannibalism among the Australian tribes in the 20th century.[16]. What is wrong with a 20th century source, when Australian infanticide was still practiced??

The book linked above and many others strongly suggest that infanticide was practiced in Australia. Reason: Roheim loved so much the natives that his disciples held polemical battles against those who condemned the practice. But neither Roheim's fans nor Roheim himself denied the practice during their polemics with other scholars! (what they disliked was the Western sensibilities which moved most Westerners to condemn the practices).

As I said, I don’t have access to the English-speaking libraries to refute the claim in the above sections of this talk page: that today’s scholarship rejects the historicity of Australian infanticide. Although I won’t revert the tons of removed content, I leave to English-speaking people the task of doing the research and, if Australian infanticide occurred (all the printed sources that I have attest to it), restore the content. I for one won’t discuss this issue anymore in Wikipedia.

Rewriting history by blanking out parts of the Australian collective memory is falsification of knowledge and a system of disinformation: something that Wikipedians should avoid.

88.5.179.229 (talk) 16:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Feminist perspectives

It would be a good idea if certain feminist perspectives on infanticide could be added to the article. In many ancient societies, infanticide was regarded as a woman's issue, given that the task of killing the child was mostly left to the woman. Indeed, even today, infanticide is a polarizing subject in feminist circles, as illustrated by the varying reactions to the Andrea Yates case, where many feminists unremarkably came out in support of Yates by painting her as a sort of female victim, a true fighter for woman's rights in the midst of male oppression. ADM (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

-- I see that it's an old remark, but do you happen to have any references for your statement that, mostly, women were tasked with killing their own child? Sounds like you make this up to me. (And as far as the Andrea Yates case, and any other similar case, goes: I don't see the relevance of male oppression in killing your own child.) Mfhulskemper (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

important info

See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolution/killer-instinct.html --Espoo (talk) 12:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Crom Cruach

I have marked this section as dubious. Crom may well have been the site of sacrifice, but other than this book of myths I have yet to find a reference to infanticide, and there is no mention on our article. Unless there is a scholarly reference I intend to delete the sentence as unreliable. - ClemMcGann (talk) 12:37, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

ok, deleted - ClemMcGann (talk) 22:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Badmouthing sources

There's some weird treatment of sources in the Middle Ages section. For example, "At the end of the 12th century, notes Richard Trexler, giving credence to misogynistic sermon literature as if it were a valid historical source, Roman women threw their newborns into the Tiber river even in daylight." If the source shouldn't be cited, then the article should just cut him out, not insult him. See also "According to William L. Langer, who presents no evidence whatsoever to support the claim..." What's with all the attitude here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.83 (talk) 22:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Christianity

Wow, this section doesn't even try to be honest. The god of the bible killed children, and ordered his followers to. Start at Hosea 13:16 and look out for the talking donkey in Numbers 22:30... 124.171.6.113 (talk) 13:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

"The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground", if you actually read it you'd realize it's promoting the destruction of Samaria not infanticide if you want to bash Christianity do it somewhere else — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qazaqs5 (talk • contribs) 03:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Relevance of mentioning the legend of Romulus and Remus

I don't see the point of mentioning this ancient Roman legend in this article. According to legend, the twins who went on to found Rome had survived an attempt on their lives by their great uncle, who saw them as potential rivals to his claim to the throne of Alba Longa. Since it is a legend or myth, it sheds no light on what the actual cultural practises or views on infanticide were in ancient Latium. And even if it were true, it was a simple attempted murder based on power and greed, and not related to the fact that the intended victims were infants.Cooker (talk) 05:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cooker (talk • contribs) 05:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Suggest split history

The history section of the article large enough that is should probably be split into a separate article on History of infanticide. Comments? Zodon (talk) 06:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Connection between Unintended/Unwanted pregnancy and Infanticide

The link to unintended pregnancy certainly belongs in this article. Note that unintended pregnancies include those that are unwanted as well as those that are mistimed. The article is about all of those topics. The connection of the topics seems pretty straight-forward, and is supported by the reference provided.

Unwanted pregnancy is a major cause of unwanted birth, which is a major cause of unwanted children, which are at greater risk of infanticide. In the history section this article lists many instances where infanticide was practiced on unwanted children. The cause of the unwantedness may be economic, social, personal, whatever, but they are still unwanted. Recent advances in contraception have provided more alternatives in chosing whether to have a pregnancy, providing more options to pregnancy and making intention more important. This change is also reflected in the patterns of and attitudes to infanticide.

The see also link to unintended pregnancy was deleted once with no explanation, and then with one that had no clear connection to the link introduced. I have no interest in the "interminable abortion wars," and have no interest in introducing them anyplace or warring about them. The article in question is about a condition that is sometimes a precursor to abortion, sometimes a precursor to infanticide, sometimes a precursor to adoption, sometimes a precursor to maternal or infant mortality, or miscarriage, and relates to various other phenomena.

At the moment I have only added it as a relevant see also, but it should be expanded and incorporated into the article using suitable references. If you think the connection needs further clarification or support, please explain here. Thanks. Zodon (talk) 05:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, that source does not meet the requirements of WP:RS, and there's no need to infect this article with the interminable fetus/baby pro-choice/pro-life debates. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that for see also to related items it is not customary to require sources for see also items, it is sufficient that the item be related.

Interesting that the source is sufficiently good to be an external link in the article, but not a reliable source. On what specific grounds is it not reliable? However that is a side note, it is easy to come up with higher quality sources - that was merely one that was conveniently to hand (and already used in the article).

The real question is why do you think the topic of unintended pregnancy is not related to infanticide. Much of the content of the article already talks about unwanted children so it makes no sense to try to ignore one of the major underlying causes of infanticide. Whether it has anything to do with pro-choice/pro-life/whatever is irrelevant. It is whether it has to do with infanticide.

To attempt to keep the concept of desiredness of a child out of the article is clearly a violation of WP:NPOV. Zodon (talk) 06:39, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the more obvious economic linkage mentioned above and already covered in the article, note that unintended pregnancy is one of the risk factors for postpartum depression, which is in turn a cause of infanticide. Screening for risk factors and offering appropriate follow-up may help prevent more serious consequences, such as suicide or infanticide. J Fam Pract. 1996 Dec;43(6 Suppl):S17-24. Postpartum depressive disorders. Susman JL. PMID 8969709 Zodon (talk) 07:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as fetus/baby/pro choice/pro life - Jayjg is the one bringing that or abortions into the discussion. Nothing in my addition about any of that. Zodon (talk) 08:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Ironically enough, while looking for higher quality sources on Unintended pregnancy and infanticide, I came across a medical text that suggests a link between the legalization of abortion in the United States and the decline in infanticide. Maureen Paul. Management of unintended and abnormal pregnancy: comprehensive abortion care. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 34. ISBN 978-1405176965. Zodon (talk) 09:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no direct link between one and the other; saying A causes B which causes C, and therefore a link to C belongs in article A doesn't count. Also the source you used in the article still isn't reliable. And finally, this is all about the interminable fetus/baby pro-choice/pro-life debates - please don't disingenuously claim otherwise. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Putting in a "See also" link does not mean that there is a "direct link," only that they are related. If there was an article on unwanted birth or unwanted children, then it might suffice to link to such an article. However there is not, so at the moment it makes sense to link to the closest available antecedent/causative condition, i.e. unintended pregnancy - it is reasonable that someone wishing to read about infanticide may also wish to read about a common precursor of infanticide.

As far as that source - why is it unreliable? It is not obvious to me in what way it violates the criteria, so I would appreciate more specific information on what criterion of WP:RS it does not meet?

As far as the debates - why do you think that linking to this article will bring on debate/edit war/etc? What does the article on unintended pregnancy have to do with those debates? Why should linking to it cause problems?

Plainly abortion is related to infanticide (in the sense that they are both ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancies), and making abortions more available is one of the factors that has lead to a decrease in infanticide in at least one country. So trying to avoid covering the topic for whatever reason will lead to violation of NPOV.

If you think that the way the link to unintended pregnancy has been introduced will cause endless debate, please suggest a way of covering the connection that you think will work better. Zodon (talk) 22:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any direct link between the two topics, and I don't see any reliable sources that do. The source you used, http://infanticide.org/history.htm , is a webpage by Larry S. Milner, on his website. I can't understand why you would assert it is a WP:RS, but I'm certainly willing to hear an argument for it. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The web page in question appears to be an excerpt/summary from Milner, Larry S. (2000). Hardness of Heart / Hardness of Life: The Stain of Human Infanticide. University Press of America. ISBN 0761815783. since it is published by an academic press, it is not obviously self published. The same web page is listed as an external link on this page, the book is used as a citation in this article and another wikipedia article about infanticide, and the contents of the site is unsurprising - paralleling the content on this wikipedia article fairly closely. If this author's work is not a reliable source, why is it cited 8 times in this article?

There is no requirement for "see also" items that there be a direct link, only that they be related. (i.e., readers interested in this are likely to be interested in that). Zodon (talk) 07:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not clear that that's an excerpt from the book; on what page is it found? WP:SEEALSO is quite clear that the See also section should contain "A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links (wikilinks) to related Wikipedia articles". This doesn't seem related. Also, please review WP:BRD - you Boldly inserted it, it was Reverted, now we Discuss it. Stop trying to edit-war it in. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The fact that the author of the article in question is the author of a book published by an academic press suggests that they are a reliable source on this topic.

There is no attempt to "edit war" anything. Since the objection was raised here that the relation was not clear, and there was question about the source. I proposed a version that made it clearer. Unintended pregnancy - with explanation of connection to infanticide and reference to source already used in the article and published by an academic press

A further refinement would be to cite the web site (since it is more easily verifiable), with note indicating that the author is the author of Hardness of Heart

• Unintended pregnancy - unwanted pregnancies are more likely than wanted ones to result in infanticide

with the reference being Larry S. Milner. "A Brief History of Infanticide". Retrieved 2011-08-24. By the author of {{cite web}}: ref stripmarker in |quote= at position 18 (help)

Since you evidently feel that the relation is not clear enough, please suggest how to clarify it further. Zodon (talk) 04:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Another reference

Maureen Marks. "Infanticide". Psychiatry. 8 (1): 10-12. doi:10.1016/j.mppsy.2008.10.017.

Of mothers who commit Neonaticide: "The pregnancies are often their first, unintentional, and concealed. The motivation to kill is usually because the child was unwanted;"

Further on it says in, relation to why it is predominantly young inexperienced women whose neonaticides are detected, "It is likely that more mature, worldly women are better able successfully to conceal an unwanted pregnancy and dispose of the newly delivered infant in such a way that it remains undiscovered."

Is that more acceptable as a reliable source? Zodon (talk) 06:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

If you have relevant material from a reliable source, then include it in the article itself, with a link to the article in question. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Zodon (talk) 05:24, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks good; adding material that way is much more useful for the reader. A properly-written article will have a brief See also section, or (ideally) none at all, as all relevant information will be incorporated into the article in a contextually meaningful way. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry it took me a while to get back to the library to answer earlier query about page reference in Hardness. Pages 122-126 seem most apropos so far. Zodon (talk) 21:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

No mention of Isaac

Guys, there is some serious bias in the editing of this article if there is a section on infanticide in Judaism is arguing that Judaism only ever banned infanticide with no mention of Yahweh's command for Abraham to kill Isaac or other instances of infanticide / killing of children in the Torah!

1. "Although there are several instances in the Bible of ancient Hebrews sacrificing their children to heathen gods" -- Oh, right, so only the non-Jews did this. Wrong. Also, unsourced!
2. "Judaism prohibits infanticide." -- Why the present tense if this is in the "In ancient history" section? Religion changes. Heck, the first Jews believed that other gods existed!
3. The only actual sources (besides verse citations) in this article are from the Common Era… how does this make sense in the "ancient history" section again?
4. References to infanticide and killing of children by Yahweh are consistently removed from this section despite having verse citations. This is a double standard, as no references are used to assert that the ancient Jews prohibited infanticide except verse references.

Shameful, biased behavior.

I am adding back some verse references of Yahweh being A-OK with infanticide. If you disagree, the anti-infanticide references must also be removed. --X883 (talk) 00:36, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The Torah narrative has God restraining Abraham from killing Isaac, so you seem to be proving the opposite of the point you intend. Also, there's no indication that Isaac was an "infant" at the time - Jewish tradition gives Isaac's age at the time of the binding as 37. Anyway, I've removed the entire paragraph as original research based on primary sources. If any material is to be added, it should come from modern reliable secondary sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Jayjg, I gather from your user page that you are yourself a Jew. While I respect you as a Wikipedian, may I suggest that you are not being entirely fair in this aspect, and you ought to recuse yourself from moderating this particular section, as your biases are apparently influencing your editorial approach here.

With regards to Isaac, while it is true the story does end with an angel stopping Abraham, note the only reason he needed stopping was because Yahweh had asked him to make the sacrifice in the first place. The article defines infant as baby but note that infant does also often refer to children as well.

Lastly, since no one has provided no justification for retaining the anti-infanticide instances of what you call "original research" based on "ancient primary sources", but see fit to remove the pro-infanticide occurrences of the same, I have no choice but to remove the entire section until someone can contribute a properly sourced, encyclopedic section with a neutral point of view. --X883 (talk) 21:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Do not make any further speculations, assertions or comments about me, or my alleged ethnicity or religion; I never comment about these matters, as they are irrelevant, and neither should you. Instead focus solely on article content, per WP:NPA and WP:TALK. Regarding the rest of your comments, 37 is not an "infant", and the Hebrew Bible is a primary source. Please review WP:NOR and WP:PRIMARY. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

You are acting irresponsibly and have rolled back my edit without justification. Whether or not my speculation is unwarranted is irrelevant to the objectivity of the article in question, and you have not responded to my claims in this area. (Are you asserting Isaac was 37 years old? What!?) My edit summary contained similar reasoning to that expressed here, and a mention of your obvious bias is but a small part. Not justification for reversions. Do not further edit this section. --X883 (talk) 22:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

An edit made on the basis of a personal attack has no justification, and you certainly have not responded to the issues raised here with your edits. Base any material you add on reliable secondary sources, per WP:V and WP:NOR. Do not refer again to me in any way, per WP:NPA. This will be your last warning. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

If I may observe, this article already cites Plutarch in regards to ancient Greece's views on infanticide, Philo for Roman views, Justin Martyr and the Didache for early Christian views. Citing Josephus would be in line with the rest of the article; if there's any concern about him being a primary source, Jayjg also cited Tacitus, who is more of a secondary source than Plutarch is for the Greeks. Meanwhile, interpreting the Torah, as you were doing with your edits, is original research (comparing two primary sources and reaching a conclusion about them is practically the definition of OR). I disagree with Jayjg that you would need to find a modern secondary source for your claims, but you would need to find some reliable secondary source that does the interpretation for you, and concludes that ancient Jewish views on infanticide were contradictory. In your edits, you didn't provide that. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 23:44, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not dispute that; not only that in the course of these edits, the only citations are from the first century, C.E. Thus the entire section no longer belongs in the "Ancient" section of the article, if it only discusses more modern Judaism; hence the removal. To keep it in place without good sources regarding Judaism in B.C.E. would be misleading. Would you agree? --X883 (talk) 23:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "modern Judaism"? What do you mean by "good sources regarding Judaism in B.C.E."? Jayjg ^(talk) 23:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree, actually. The earliest citation for Roman views is from 1 BCE, which is roughly the same time period as the citations from Tacitus and Josephus. You could make an argument that the phrasing should be something along the lines of "Since at least the first century, Judaism held that infanticide..." but I don't think it's valid to say the section should be removed solely because there are no citations for more ancient Jewish views on infanticide. It's sourced and it discusses first century Judaism, which is a consistent time period with other cultures discussed in the "Ancient History" section. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 00:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I just re-read the section; it already says "...dating back to at least early Common Era." That's entirely consistent with the sources, and it doesn't preclude a different earlier in Judaism. I just don't see why earlier Jewish views on infanticide would even be an issue, unless and until reliable sources can be found to discuss those views. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 00:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Side remark. I have been contacted by X883 to make a comment. I have to say that I am guessing this is because he found that I have been in some debates, or one extended debate, with Jayjg. I am not sure that is a good way to find third parties on WP! Anyway, I looked at this and FWIW I agree with the comments of 107.10.43.91, meaning I basically agree with Jayjg. I think this is not a disagreement that many experienced editors are going to be interested in getting involved in as it stands right now, because X883 is asking to remove sourced material, but is unable to cite any sources to back his position. Generally speaking, in such situations, not only should you go find sources first, but you should not be arguing to remove cited material, but more towards adding whatever other opinions you think can be well sourced. The case of Isaac is not enough, because interpreting that as an example of an infanticide is obviously wrong (Isaac was not killed) and also interpreting it as signs of an infanticide tradition is obvious going to be fairly tenuous and controversial (meaning you need good sources) because in the story itself is is presented as a one off test of faith of one man.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Note I was the one who introduced the phrase "...dating back to at least early Common Era". Please note that comparisons with the Romans, as far as time of primary sources is concerned, is not entirely valid; the Roman empire began in 27 BCE and Judaism itself is a whole millennium older than that. My concern that the section omits early Hebrew attitudes toward infanticide remains.

Furthermore, I did not find Andrew Lancaster because he had disputes with Jayjg in the past, and remain unaware of any such disputes except as alluded to above. I found a random article and then viewed its history, selecting the first admin-type user therein.

Lastly, I do wish Jayjg would cease claiming persecution from me. My only concern is the objectivity of this section, and my only observation is that I believe it to be a biased section, maintained as such primarily by Jayjg’s edits. Any implications that this reflects on Jayjg’s character are both unintentional and likely unavoidable. I have no doubt he/she is a good editor, but disagree with his/her edits to some degree, here. --X883 (talk) 19:01, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Well then, what sources can you bring to the article concerning those earlier Hebrew attitudes?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree about the Roman example being invalid. The empire may have begun in 27 BCE, but the republic was well-established for centuries before that. But that's tangential to the discussion, so I won't push it.

You seem to be saying that the current section on Judaism is NPOV, at least for the limited scope of just the past 2,000 years. If that's the case, then I think we can agree that what's written right now should stay. This doesn't preclude expanding the section to discuss earlier Jewish views on infanticide if and only if reliable sources can be found.

If this isn't what you're saying (and some of your edit summaries like [17] said the section is NNPOV and poorly sourced), then what specifically do you see as POV or why would you reject Tacitus and Josephus as reliable sources?

Like Andrew Lancaster says, without reliable sources, there's no point in discussing earlier Jewish views. If you do have reliable sources, that's an entirely different matter. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

What is it about "Do not refer again to me in any way, per WP:NPA" that you don't understand? The article's talk page is for discussing article content. Do not refer again to me in any way, per WP:NPA. Discuss article content only. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Seems a strange mix of regions, cultures, religions. What's the rule, charred bones are considered evidence, unless the religion says otherwise? Christianity and middle ages contradict each other. As for judaism; with current abortion laws in Israel, God forbidding women to cause abortion of what is begotten seems hardly authorative. Same for Christians etc...

Numbers would say more. But when I see what numbers are quoted in the article.. 2.1 per 100,000 newborns per year? It's hard to take serious a study that says: ".. comprising 0.002% of all liveborn infants 0 to 4 days of age during the 16-year study period, giving a rate of 2.1 per 100 000 per year." Wonder what my lifetime risk would be.. DS Belgium (talk) 20:41, 23 October 2011 (UTC)