Principal Investigator:

Jon'a Meyer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, and Director of the Criminal Justice Program.

This pilot study is partially funded by the Center for Children and Childhood Studies

Dr. Jon'a Meyer prompted a spirited discussion among the Associates of the Center for Children and Childhood Studies on her detailed studies on the terrible phenomenon of infanticide. . Reaching as far back as fourth century Rome when Constantine declared the killing of infants by fathers a crime, Assistant Professor Meyer traced these actions and the cultural and legal attitudes toward them through the centuries to the highly documented modern instances.

From the eighth century to the fourteenth, infanticide was rarely prosecuted. However, the large numbers of illegitimate births resulted in a great many abandoned infants. Foundling homes were opened in Milan, Florence, Rome and other cities by the Church to encourage women to save their unwanted infants.

By the early 1600's, child homicide had become a crime to be tried in the secular courts. The 1623 act in London began: "Whereas, many lewd women that have been delivered of bastard children, to avoid their shame, and to escape punishment, do secretly bury or conceal the death of their children,..."

In the 1800's, expanded newspaper coverage and novels took a more sympathetic view toward women on the low end of the economic scale, who were frequently seen as seduced by men from the upper classes.

Today's demographics show that infant abandonment is still most often found among unmarried teens afraid of the consequences of illegitimate births. Dr. Meyer's continued research will try to develop an understanding of these mothers who kill their newborns.

Reported by Ed Mauger