Revisiting Canada's infanticide law
A safeguard for women? An insult to women? Canada's infanticide law, like the crime itself, ignites strong emotions on both sides. Just how did the legislation evolve and why do some legal experts want it scrapped?
The Edmonton Journal, David Staples, Sunday, November 12, 2006
"You heartless bastards!"
The words rang out in a Wetaskiwin courtroom, Ryan Effert's verbal attack on the eight-woman, four-man jury that had just found his 20-year-old sister, Katrina, guilty of murdering her newborn baby.
Ryan Effert was the first to lash out at the jury, but his angry words have been echoed by many others. Defence lawyers, legal experts, pundits and members of the public have all expressed upset and bewilderment at the decision on Sept. 26. More..
WOMEN:
THE FORGOTTEN CHILD MURDERERS
Women who kill their children are given sympathy and sentenced to "treatment" while men who do the same thing are charged with murder and sentenced to life.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that women are many times more likely to murder their offspring than men. More ..
Infanticide - Criminal Code of Canada Offence
Infanticide is a lesser crime than homicide in Canada
Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on Women Killing Babies
In her 1991 report titled Crime and Women -- Feminine Equality and the Criminal Law she stated:
"Women faced with an unwanted pregnancy now have a number of less desperate alternatives available to them."
Feminist Quotes About Infanticide
Author Kirsten Kramar, a feminist sociologist teaching at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in her scholarly feminist book about infanticide.
The "I did it because of social pressures on me. It's not my fault at all." gynocentric approach:
"Single women who killed illegitimate babies to conceal their illicit sexual activity were acting out of the very sense of morality that the purity campaigns sought to inculcate. That the illegitimate babies did not survive to complicate paternal responsibility may also have explained juror reluctance to punish women harshly."The "I'm doing my baby a favour by killing it." approach:
"More broadly, the women who killed their newly born illegitimate babies were understood to be conforming to ideological notions governing motherhood and femininity since they killed their babies to hide the shame of their ex-nuptial sexual activity and to protect the infant from living a life stigmatized by illegitimacy."Western Countries got it all wrong
"Certainly, the killing of newborn babies by their mothers has not been universally constructed as a moral, legal, or quasi-legal violation, a fact that is well documented by anthropological literature, which casts a very telling light on the narrow Western conceptualization of the killing of newborn babies as a crime requiring a retributive response, even if only for the purposes of general deterrence."You have to read this feminist justification for killing babies:
"Infanticide law is part of a much wider cultural formation that disallows the killing of live-born babies. To assert that infanticide law constructs the categories of “bad” and “good” mother around the notion that killing babies is wrong cedes far too much power to an ill-conceived
and poorly operating law. This idea already exists as a formidable component of the broader culture."
Criminal Code of Canada - Homicide
222. (1) A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly, by any means, he causes the death of a human being.
Kinds of homicide
(2) Homicide is culpable or not culpable.
Non culpable homicide
(3) Homicide that is not culpable is not an offence.
Culpable homicide
(4) Culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide.
Criminal Code - PART VIII: OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON AND REPUTATION
Homicide
| When child becomes human being |
223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not (a) it has breathed; (b) it has an independent circulation; or (c) the navel string is severed. |
|
Killing child |
(2) A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being. R.S., c. C-34, s. 206. |
Infanticide
233. A female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind is then disturbed. R.S., c. C-34, s. 216.
Punishment for infanticide
237. Every female person who commits infanticide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 220.
Punishment for murder
235. (1) Every one who commits first degree murder or second degree murder is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Minimum punishment
(2) For the purposes of Part XXIII, the sentence of imprisonment for life prescribed by this section is a
minimum punishment.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 218; 1973-74, c. 38, s. 3; 1974-75-76, c. 105, s. 5.
Manslaughter
234. Culpable homicide that is not murder or infanticide is manslaughter. R.S., c. C-34, s. 217.
Criminal Code - PART VIII: OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON AND REPUTATION
Neglect in Child-birth and Concealing Dead Body
| Neglect to obtain assistance in child-birth |
242. A female person who, being pregnant and about to be delivered, with intent that the child shall not live or with intent to conceal the birth of the child, fails to make provision for reasonable assistance in respect of her delivery is, if the child is permanently injured as a result thereof or dies immediately before, during or in a short time after birth, as a result thereof, guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 226. |
Criminal Code - PART VIII: OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON AND REPUTATION
Neglect in Child-birth and Concealing Dead Body
| Concealing body of child |
243. Every one who in any manner disposes of the dead body of a child, with intent to conceal the fact that its mother has been delivered of it, whether the child died before, during or after birth, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 227. |
CanadianCRC Editor's Commentary:
A woman who kills her 5 month old child and claims mental illness, may be charged with "infanticide"
according to the definition which has a limited penalty of a maximum time in prison much less than if
she had been charged with murder of an adult.
If a father, who is deeply depressed, kills his 5 month old child, he has committed "murder" and is often treated by the media and judges as another violent male. These judges are subject to feminist indoctrination in their training at Canada's National Judicial Institute.
Established in 1988, the National Judicial Institute coordinates and provides training programs and continuing education services to all of Canada's judges. It is located in Ottawa.
Although the curriculum of the institute is not available to the general public, analysis of the biographies of law professors and judges who teach there reveal the feminist political influence on members of the institute. Often law professors receive judgeships.
No where did we find references to any masculist training of Canadian judges or training from independent children's rights organizations that don't receive some form of federal government funding and therefore have a feminist slanted view.
An independent judiciary should have transparency of their training materials and a broad experience of considering a wide range of views.
Criminal Code of Canada is available at:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/C-46//20090609/en ( full print version - checked June 9, 2009 )
