Bibliographic record
Abstract
The offence of infanticide is allegedly based in debunked and sexist ideas about women and pregnancy. This article demonstrates that this offence is both necessary and beneficial regardless of its alleged basis. This article outlines the elements of infanticide and examines the legislative history from Medieval England to its adoption in Canada before discussing contemporary discourses on infanticide with a particular focus on the application of modern medical science. This work argues there are two issues with the current offence: (1) the requirement of a “disturbed mind” in the accused resulting from childbirth or lactation; and (2) the lack of a required causal connection between the “disturbed mind” and the offence. Reforming the offence in this way would reduce the breadth of the offence and improve the ways in which women are dealt with by the criminal justice system.\nThis article is helpful for readers seeking to learn more about: \ncriminal law, infanticide, homicide, murder, Canadian legal history, English legal history, medical science, law reform \nTopics in this article include: \ncausality, defence of mental disorder, criminal offences, criminal defences, Canada, England, medical science, psychiatric science, postpartum disorders, childbirth, lactation, external stressors, Criminal Code section 233, Chief Justice McLachlin, Old Bailey \nAuthorities cited in this article include: \nCriminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46 \nStuart Bastard Neonaticide Act, 1624 (UK), 21 JA I, c 27 \nInfanticide Act, 1938 (UK), 1 & 2 Geo VI, c 36 \nMalicious Shooting and Stabbing Act (1803) 43 Geo III, c 58 \nR v Krieger, 2006 SCC 47 \nR v Guimont (1999), 141 CCC (3d) 314 (QCA) \nR v Coombs, 2003 ABQB 818 \nR v LB (2008), 237 CCC (3d) 215 (Ont Sup Ct) \nR v LB, 2011 ONCA 153 \nR v Effert, 2011 ABCA 134 \nR v Smith (1976), 24 Nfld & PEIR 161 (Nfld Dist Ct)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.061 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".