A dissertation on infanticide, in its relations to physiology and jurisprudence / By William Hutchinson.

  • Hutchinson, William, active 1820.
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on infanticide, in its relations to physiology and jurisprudence / By William Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    lifted and more temperate enactment; under which, if a woman ‘‘shall conceal her being with child during the whole period of her preg- nancy, and shall not call for, or make use of, help or assistance in the birth; and, if the child shall be found dead or amissing, the mother, being lawfully convicted thereof, shall be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years.” * The fundamental circumstances required by the above statute for the attachment of the pe- nalty it enacts, are, that the woman be proved to have been pregnant, and that the child be mis- sing, or that the dead body of a child be found, which is proved to be her child. In the former case, the proof of the pregnancy can only be by those signs in the state of the woman’s person which show her to have been recently delivered. The statute has presumed, that decisive evidence of pregnancy may in this way be obtained, else it could not have ordered any thing in the case of a child that is missing; and that, where the birth is a mere abortion, or when criminal vio- lence has not been inflicted on it, it will not be concealed. In the case of the body being found, the above-mentioned evidence may be strength- ened, if the woman, on being shown the body, has admitted it to be that of her child; which confession, of itself, has always been held suffi- cient proof of that material fact against her. l + 9 Geo. III. c. 14.