Full Description
On April 22, 2015, the sorority sisters at Ohio's Muskingum University's Delta house encountered a horrific scene: pools of blood and gore in the first-floor bathroom. No one knew exactly what had happened, but the sisters suspected it had something to do with Emile Weaver. Studious, athletic, and well-liked, Emile had recently started wearing bulky sweatsuits and hiding her midsection, as if she was covering up a sudden weight gain. Could Emile be pregnant?
Emboldened by fear, the sorority sisters investigated. In the driveway next to the kitchen door, they found Emile's newborn baby girl dead inside a garbage bag. Emile's crime seemed senseless and left her family and friends with an aching question: what happened?
American Infanticide situates Emile's tragic act in a long intellectual, social, and legal history, uncovering disturbing missing chapters in our national history that undercut myths that have shaped public reactions to so-called monster moms and dumpster babies since the colonial era. Ultimately, the book uncovers how bias and inconsistency dictate how women accused of infant homicide are perceived and punished and sheds new light on how and why our legal responses to infanticide are so deeply misguided.
Contents
Introduction: "Disgraced by a Crime So Disgusting"
Part I: Intellectual, Legal, and Social History
1. "Innocent and Seduced" versus "Lewd and Cunning": The Invention of Blameless and Blameworthy Infanticidal Mothers
2. The Discovery of Heterogeneity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Motive, Agency, and Culpability
Part II: A Double Tragedy
3. Losing Addison
4. Losing Emile
5. No Safe Haven: Addressing the Mistreatment of Neonaticide
Conclusion: A Social Theory of Neonaticide Risk
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction: "Disgraced by a Crime
So Disgusting" 1
PA R T I
The Intellectual and Legal
History of Infanticide
1 "Innocent and Seduced" versus "Lewd and Cunning":
The Invention of Blameless and Blameworthy
Infanticidal Mothers
23
2 The Discovery of Heterogeneity: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Motive, Agency, and Culpability 55
PA R T I I
A Double Tragedy
3 Losing Addison 89
4 Losing Emile 111
5 No Safe Haven: Addressing the Mistreatment
of Neonaticide 153
Conclusion: A Social Theory of Neonaticide Risk 163
Acknowledgments
171
Notes 173
Index 000
