Neonaticide

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neonaticide ( Latin / Greek : neonatal killing ) refers to the killing of a newborn child , usually immediately after birth .

While in some cultures the killing of newborn children is a common measure to avoid u. a. Overpopulation was or is that closes in Western countries, this form infanticide ( infanticide ) often in pregnancies that have been kept secret until the birth of the child from the mother or even denied before himself. With a few exceptions, the killing occurs by the child's mother herself as an extreme stress and panic reaction after the “surprise” of the sudden birth.

causes

Overall, only a few studies of the neonatal phenomenon have so far been carried out. As far as we know, there is no isolatable single cause for the killing of a newborn by the mother. In some cases, it is only when several factors come together that an act is taken. There is no evidence that mothers who take a neonaticide are more likely to have a personality disorder, for example in the sense of a lack of maturity or completely inadequate coping mechanisms, than other mothers. But in the case of the abandonment of newborns, the former are not in a position to use existing offers of help such as pregnancy conflict counseling , baby flaps or the release for adoption .

The triggers for the pathological concealment of the pregnancy and the subsequent abandonment or killing of an infant can be the mother's environment, if it rejects possible parenthood or would result in negative consequences. But even in intact and actually accepting environments there were cases of neonatalides and child abandonment in which the mother was unable to explain the reason for her behavior rationally.

In the media and in public, the cause is often sought in the living conditions of the perpetrators, e.g. B. that they are very young, in training or unemployed. But the act is actually committed by mothers of all social classes , as the educational scientist and criminologist Prof. Christine Swientek states : “Among the women who killed their babies were schoolgirls as well as nurses and social education students. It goes through all layers, through all age groups ”. Prof. Theresia Höynck , criminologist and legal scholar confirms these findings.

According to current knowledge, there is only one unanimous, unambiguous characteristic for all acts: the mother's personal environment did not notice the pregnancy or the mothers were able to hide it successfully. Furthermore, no clear characteristics have been proven. Other factors that can favor neonatal killer include, but not necessarily, the absence or non-functioning of closer social support and control systems or severe addictions , especially if they impair the ability to criticize and judge and relate to reality.

Magnitude

Every year in Germany about thirty newborn killing or abandoning children are known, fifty to seventy percent of the cases are cleared up . One hundred and fifty years ago the number of victims was much higher (several thousand cases are estimated); by 1950 there were about three hundred victims per year. The decline is associated with a better counseling situation. The effects of the increasingly common, better and more available contraceptives should also be significant here.

Neonaticide and German criminal law

Neonaticides are legally convicted according to § 212 StGB ( manslaughter , sentence 5 to 15 years) or §§ 212, 213 (less serious case of manslaughter, sentence 1 to 10 years) of the Criminal Code . If characteristics such as greed , cruelty or ruthless selfishness appear in childicide , the infanticide is to be assessed as murder according to Section 211.

In Germany, until the 6th criminal law reform in 1998, neonaticide of a child born out of wedlock was given the criminal law privilege of Section 217 StGB (“A mother who kills her illegitimate child during or immediately after birth”, sentence 3 to 15 years, less severe cases 6 Months to 5 years), which assumed less injustice due to social pressure on unmarried mothers in earlier centuries (social expulsion, loss of work, for example). The killing of a legitimate child was not recorded and rated as manslaughter.

With social change and the acceptance and equality of illegitimate children, this penal provision was viewed in 1998 as superfluous, no longer up-to-date, and thus abolished.

Investigations into the sentences show that in 40 percent of the convicted cases prison sentences of up to two years were imposed. As a rule, the acts are rated as manslaughter , often as a less serious case .

Neonaticide in Austrian criminal law

According to Section 79 StGB, neonatalicide is a privileged form of murder. If the child is killed by the mother during the birth or while the mother was still under the influence of the birth process, the mild penalty of six months to five years imprisonment applies - in comparison to murder according to Section 75 StGB - on the basis of the legally irrefutable suspicion Loss of sanity during the birth process. The neonaticide is an act of intent and as such must be distinguished from negligent homicide ( Section 80 StGB). The privilege even takes effect if the mother planned the act long before the birth and her sanity was demonstrably not reduced. The privilege only benefits the mother. If the father or another person kills the child, this is punishable under Section 75 StGB (murder). The same applies if someone incites the mother to kill, then this is punishable according to § 12 in conjunction with § 75 StGB (designated perpetrator ).

Cultural comparison of neonaticide

Unlike in Western cultures , in the tradition of some other cultures it was or is not considered morally or legally reprehensible to kill infants after birth. The following examples illustrate this (see for example Kuhse, Singer 1993, p. 135ff.):

  • The killing of newborn girls was very common among the Netsilik Inuit in arctic Canada. The background is that male offspring were able to contribute to the survival of the family through hunting in particular. Long breastfeeding (two to three years) and raising a girl was therefore considered an obstacle, especially in times of scarce food supplies, as the mother could not become pregnant again so quickly and, if it happened, could give birth to a boy. The decision about whether to raise a newborn baby was mainly dependent on the current and expected food supply and was often made by the father, but also by the child's mother or grandparents. Usually the children whose death had been decided were laid in the snow and frozen to death , unless another family took care of the baby. As a side effect of the killing of female newborns, the gender ratio remained relatively balanced as many men perished while hunting.
  • The killing of newborns is also not an uncommon phenomenon among the ǃKung (the ' einen ' stands for a sound for which there is no letter in German), a nomadic people from the Kalahari desert . The women killed their infants when they were born with a malformation , the distance to the next older sibling was considered too small (less than about three to four years) and in the case of multiple births , in principle all but one of the newborns were killed. The prevailing thought was that a child with a disability cannot be economical and that breastfeeding two or more children at the same time would inevitably either weaken all children or at least one would eventually die of malnutrition. When in doubt, the life of the older child was preferred to that of the newborn. In addition to natural infant mortality, the measure of killing newborns contributed to keeping the population density balanced and also to adapting the conditions of child rearing to the harsh living conditions of the people (for example, traveling long distances, breastfeeding the children often up to the age of four, as no other food for them Children were present, the mothers carried the children for a long time). For childbirth , the woman pulled back most, if necessary together with her mother, and when she had decided not to raise the child as an adequate supply did not seem possible, it was together with the placenta buried and was considered a stillbirth .
  • The Tikopia people live in Polynesia and until the arrival of Christian missionaries strictly adhered to the principle of the priority of community interests over the interests of the individual. As a rule, the eldest son of a family married and reproduced, while the younger male descendants of the family mostly remained unmarried, often of their own free will, because sexual intercourse between unmarried people was not considered offensive. The eldest son inherited the land, agriculture was the main source of food for the family. Intra-family population control was based on these resources and, in case of doubt, the father had to decide whether or not another child would be particularly compatible with the food supply of his family. Preventive measures were taken by interrupting sexual intercourse before ejaculation ( coitus interruptus ). If, then , methods of termination of pregnancy were mostly practiced by unmarried women. Married women usually killed an improperly born infant after birth by placing it face down on the floor and leaving it in that position until the death from asphyxiation occurred. As a result of Christian proselytizing, sexual intercourse among unmarried people was viewed as a sin , more men married, and more children were born. In the course of the new morals , the killing of newborns was no longer seen as a means of natural population control.
  • On average, five to six children who had villagers in Japan until the 18th century . From then until the first half of the 19th century , the killing of newborns was practiced in peasant families who could not afford an abortion as a means of combating the overpopulation that existed at that time (measured in terms of the land available for cultivation) in order to address the problem of To counteract or prevent famine and malnutrition . The ideal of the Japanese peasant family at that time envisaged three children, two sons and a daughter. The daughter was considered an object of exchange for a wife for the first-born male offspring, the second son as reinsurance in case something should happen to the other. Infant killing as an alternative to raising the child was so common that after delivery midwives used to ask whether the child should be "left behind" / "returned" or not. Unsuitable children, who were rejected in order to maintain the balance between the number of children and the food supply, the family size, the estate size and, last but not least, the gender ratio of the siblings, were buried, partly in the courtyard of the house, partly next to a shrine.
  • The Mariame , a now extinct tribe of North American Indians from the Coahuiltec group , also often killed female descendants and occasionally male children when unfavorable dreams demanded it.
  • Before the ban by British colonial rule , many newborn women were killed in the Todas in southern India in order to regulate population growth.

Neonaticide in severely disabled newborns

In Western cultures, a number of people have been of the opinion for years that selective active killing or the passive non-treatment of newborns with severe disabilities or malformations ( e.g. anencephaly ) should be legalized. Take a pioneering role in this movement u. a. the Australian philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer and the British bioethicist John Harris. The latter, like Singer, takes the view that "it is not plausible to assume a moral change during the journey through the birth canal" ( BBC News, January 16, 2004). For example, it has long been legally legal in many Western countries and tolerated and accepted by large parts of society to have an abortion carried out in the event of a pre-natal disability or malformation of the child - even if the child's viability is given or expected . It is therefore incomprehensible that a newborn should be allowed to live or kept alive on the basis of moral principles if its disability or malformation had not been recognized prenatally and the parents could not be offered the alternative of abortion.

The criticism of these efforts is still enormous. In Germany in particular, it is not only feared by organizations for the disabled that a corresponding regulation could give a mentality political space and legal legitimation that could ultimately evoke social attitudes towards people with disabilities, which in the past made the National Socialist “euthanasia” programs possible.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Infanticide: The women see their child as a disturbing object On: Spiegel Online. April 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ Nahlah Saimeh: Anyone can become a murderer . 2nd Edition. Piper, 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-30073-5 .