in 1922 (amended in 1938) in Great Britain, similarly in Canada and Australia and in 1949 in Ireland, these Infanticide Acts, which sought to absolve any woman who killed her newborn infant from full culpability for this act of murder, by making it NOT murder, not slaughter, not really her fault. From The Enactment of an Irish Infanticide Act by Karen Brennan.

“In 1922, an infanticide statute was enacted in England and Wales. The Infanticide Act 1922 was later amended in 1938 to accommodate the killing of infants up to the age of 12 months, allowing a woman who wilfully killed her infant to be charged with/convicted of infanticide, an offence akin to manslaughter in terms of seriousness and punishment, notwithstanding that she would otherwise be guilty of murder,the 1950’s. This oppression of course was ongoing, was a historical fact, the 1950’s being that period in time when women started to fight against these oppressive patriarchal chains.

But with regard to the killing of babies by their mothers, surely these acts were so rare that legislation was unnecessary, surely in the rare instances that a woman killed her newborn the mechanisms for dealing with such acts was already incorporated into the statute books, after all, even a woman who killed her newborn infant was entitled to a defence?

Between the years 1927 – 1949 in Ireland a total of 1,158 babies died, of those, 167 were over I year old, 135 were under 1 year old, and 856 were classified as Concealment of Birth cases (COB) a lesser