July 29, 2009
Horrible and disgusting . . . parents killing their own babies. Here is an article out of Texas about a mother who committed a gruesome murder of her own 3 1/2 week old infant, repeatedly stabbing, decapitating and mutilating him: San Antonio Express News, via The Houston Chronicle, July 27, 2009, San Antonio Baby Fund Stabbed, Decapitated.
Yet, what most of us in the modern westernized world don’t know is that infanticide has been documented to have been very common throughout human history in most societies, the farther back in time, the more gruesome and the more prevalent, including violent infant sacrifice in the earliest societies, as well as exposure of most babies by medieval European societies, among many other variations of the same, perhaps used as a form of birth control, perhaps worse, as a way to displace parents’ pain and suffering on innocents.
Consider this from Larry Stephen Milner:
“But the fact of the matter is that infanticide is not an isolated phenomenon and cannot be explained by some aberrant sociopathic excuse. From sacrificial killings meant to appease the wrath of gods, to the abandonment of bastard newborns in an attempt to hide from shame, human beings have slaughtered their offspring with no less frequency than they have murdered in the pursuit of war and oppression. The sheer numbers are staggering. In every era, in every country, some degree of infanticide has been found. While certain societies have noted only sporadic cases, others reveal that 10-50% of all newborns have been killed either at birth or soon thereafter. And for the most part, these killings have proceeded with either direct participation, or the permission, of the child’s parent and societal legal codes.” Larry Stephen Milner, Hardness of Heart; Hardness of Life. The Stain of Human Infanticide. Kearney: Morris Publications, 1998, p. 3.