Infanticide is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose being the prevention of resources being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were usually abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were deliberately killed. Infanticide is generally illegal, but in some places the practice is tolerated, or the prohibition is not strictly enforced.
Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment in late-Victorian Britain and, less commonly, in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. If the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing. Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments.
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship. The phrase is typically used to describe the physical abandonment of a child. Still, it can also include severe cases of neglect and emotional abandonment, such as when parents fail to provide financial and emotional support for children over an extended period. An abandoned child is referred to as a foundling. Baby dumping refers to parents leaving a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of terminating their care for the child. It is also known as rehoming when adoptive parents use illegal means, such as the internet, to find new homes for their children. In the case where child abandonment is anonymous within the first 12 months, it may be referred to as secret child abandonment.
Stephanie Keene, better known by the pseudonym Baby K, was an anencephalic baby who became the center of a major American court case and a debate among bioethicists.
David Southall is a retired British paediatrician who specialised in international maternal and child hospital healthcare and in child protection. He worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993-1995, for which he received an OBE in 1999. In 1995 he set up the charity Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International (MCAI), of which he remains a trustee as of 2023. His child protection work and research into Munchausen syndrome by proxy attracted controversy and led to conflict with the General Medical Council.
The United States Children's Bureau is a federal agency founded in 1912, organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Today, the bureau's operations involve improving child abuse prevention, foster care, and adoption. Historically, its work was much broader, as shown by the 1912 act which created and funded it:
The said bureau shall investigate and report to [the Department of Commerce and Labor] upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth-rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children, employment, legislation affecting children in the several states and territories.
Child abuse is physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential wrongful harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with.
A baby hatch or baby box is a place where people can leave babies, usually newborn, anonymously in a safe place to be found and cared for. This was common from the Middle Ages to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the device was known as a foundling wheel. Foundling wheels were abandoned in the late 19th century, but a modern form, the baby hatch, was reintroduced from 1952 and since 2000 has been adopted in many countries, most notably in Pakistan where there are more than 300. They can also be found in Germany (100), the United States (150), Czech Republic (88) and Poland (67).
Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also known as fabricated or induced illness by carers (FII) and first named as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP) after Munchausen syndrome, is a mental health disorder in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person - typically their child, and sometimes (rarely) when an adult falsely simulates an illness or health issues in another adult partner. This might include altering test samples, injuring a child, falsifying diagnoses, or portraying the appearance of health issues through contrived photographs, videos, and other ‘evidence’ of the supposed illness. The caregiver or partner then continues to present the person as being sick or injured, convincing others of the condition/s and their own suffering as the caregiver. Permanent injury or even death of the victim can occur as a result of the disorder and the caretaker’s actions. The behaviour is generally thought to be motivated by the caregiver or partner seeking the sympathy or attention of other people and/or the wider public.
Child Protective Services (CPS) is a government agency that investigates allegations of child abuse or neglect, and if confirmed, intervenes by providing services to the family through a safety plan, in-home monitoring, supervision, or placing the child in foster care which may involve removing them from the custody of their parent or legal guardian.
Leonard John Henry Arthur was a British doctor tried in the 1981 case of R v Arthur, for the attempted murder of John Pearson, a newborn child with Down's syndrome. He was acquitted.
Harry John Haiselden was an American physician and the Chief Surgeon at the German-American Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Haiselden gained notoriety in 1915, when he refused to perform needed surgery for children born with severe birth defects and allowed the babies to die, in an act of eugenics. The film The Black Stork was made by him, about him, and starred him.
Child euthanasia is a form of euthanasia that is applied to children who are gravely ill or have significant birth defects. In 2005, the Netherlands became the first country since the end of Nazi Germany to decriminalize euthanasia for infants with hopeless prognosis and intractable pain. Nine years later, Belgium amended its 2002 Euthanasia Act to extend the rights of euthanasia to minors. Like adult euthanasia, there is world-wide public controversy and ethical debate over the moral, philosophical and religious issues of child euthanasia.
Coin-operated-locker babies or coin-locker babies are victims of child abuse often occurring in Japan, in which infants are left in public lockers. There are two main variables that account for the differences in frequency and the type of these child abuse cases: social and economical. Predominantly neonates and male babies, the murder of infants became a form of population control in Japan, being discovered 1–3 months after death, wrapped in plastic and appearing to have died of asphyxiation. The presumption is that such lockers are regularly checked by attendants and the infant will be found quickly; however, many children are found dead. Between 1980 and 1990, there were 191 reported cases of infants which died in coin-operated lockers, which represents about six percent of all infanticides during that period.
This disability rights timeline lists events relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities in the United States of America, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward or a non-minor, typically aged 18–21, who volunteers for placement, is placed in a relative placement, a non-related extended family (NREFM) placement, a community family home, an institution, or a group home. Relative, NREFM, and community caregivers certified by the state are typically referred to as "foster parents," "kin caregivers," "resource parents," or other local terms. The placement of the child is usually arranged through state or county social services. The institution, group home, or caregiver is reimbursed for the expenses related to caring for the child. The state via the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions, while the caregiver is responsible for the day-to-day care of the minor. Even while their child is in Care, typically birth parents retain Education and Medical rights and the right to contact with their child unless parental rights are terminated by the Court.
Intersex people in Uganda face a dangerous environment, with significant gaps in protection from mutilation and non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and protection from discrimination.
Baby M was the pseudonym of an Australian girl named Allison who was born with severe birth defects, whose treatment and eventual death caused significant controversy and international discussion about the medical ethics of disabled newborns. Right to Life activists accused her parents and the hospital of murdering the infant, leading to a lengthy legal inquest.
Prasanna Nair is an Indian-born doctor working in the United States. She works in primary health care with a specialty in pediatric endocrinology.
The murder of Mary Anne Welch was perpetrated by her parents Seth Welch and Tatiana Fusari. Mary, a 10-month old infant, died of malnutrition and dehydration in Solon Township, Kent County, Michigan on August 2, 2018. Both parents were convicted of first-degree murder after Mary's death was attributed to neglect.
