WDW101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Reverse Onus, Postpartum Psychosis, Insanity Defense
Document Summary
Is the causation of death of an infant by its own mother. It is a legal (in the sense that we can talk about different kinds in different cultures) concept, and legal in that we have it as a legal offence (which is essentially mitigation. It is a verdict that can be found in a case that has the possibility of being murder. It includes a form called maternal neonaticide (the killing of a very newborn child). Canada, infanticide is usually when a mother kills her own child in the first year if its life. Strikingly, in canada, infanticide is the only sex-specific crime in the code. A father who kills his own child in the first year of life can"t be convicted of infanticide. One feature is that both psychologists who support the notion of bws, and the rational actor feminist sociologists (who criticize it), both believe that they are arguing on behalf of the women for exoneration.
