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Introduction: Rethinking the Criminalization of Childbirth: Infanticide in Premodern Europe and the Modern Americas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

Sara McDougall  and
Felicity Turner
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Extract

On October 2, 2020, a newborn infant girl was discovered in the trash in an airport bathroom in Doha, Qatar. There was a rush to secure the infant's life, which was successful. There was a rush, also, to find the infant's mother, an effort that involved subjecting several women to intrusive physical examinations to determine if they had recently given birth, leading, eventually, to international outcry.

Type
Forum: Rethinking the Criminalization of Childbirth: Infanticide in Premodern Europe and the Modern Americas
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 225 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society for Legal History

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Footnotes

The authors wish to thank the contributors to this forum, in addition to Cassia Roth, Nazanin Sullivan, and James Schmidt, all of whom originally participated in the 2019 roundtable at the American Historical Association conference in Chicago that inspired this forum.

References

1. Livia Albeck-Ripka and Yan Zhuang, “Women on Qatar Airways Flight Are Strip-Searched, Sparking Outrage in Australia,” New York Times, October 26, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/world/australia/qatar-airways-women-strip-search-baby.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap (accessed March 18, 2021). On this see also https://msmagazine.com/2020/11/23/qatar-airlines-women-strip-search-baby/ (accessed March 18, 2021).

2. Laura McMah, “Qatar Authorities Charge Woman for Allegedly Dumping Baby in Bathroom Bin at Doha Airport.” https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/qatar-authorities-charge-woman-for-allegedly-dumping-baby-in-bathroom-bin-at-doha-airport/news-story/0fcffc169e84def9ab80a544a6851de1 (accessed March 18, 2021).

3. Gregory Walton, Reuters/Agence France-Presse. https://www.courthousenews.com/qatar-says-identified-parents-of-dumped-baby-in-airport-scandal/ (accessed March 18, 2021).

4. Ana P. Santos, https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/where-pregnancy-prison-sentence (accessed March 18, 2021); Ana P. Santos, https://pulitzercenter.org/projects/womans-crime-and-punishment (accessed March 18, 2021).

5. See, for instance, “Qatar officials say mother of abandoned baby was a ‘convict’ who fled the country” ABC News Australia, November 23 2020, accessed at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-24/qatar-officals-say-mother-of-abandoned-baby-identified-fled/12913702?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=abc_news_web (March 18 2021).