Infanticide is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose being the prevention of resources being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were usually abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were deliberately killed. Infanticide is generally illegal, but in some places the practice is tolerated, or the prohibition is not strictly enforced.
Infanticidio by Mexican artist Antonio García Vega
Medea killing her sons, by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862)
Femme Russe abandonnant ses enfants à des loups ("Russian Woman Abandoning Her Children to the Wolves"). Charles-Michel Geoffroy [fr], 1845
Baby killer Amelia Dyer (pictured upon entry to Wells Asylum in 1893). Her trial led to stricter laws for adoption and raised the profile of the fledgling National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) which formed in 1884.
The one-child policy was a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. The program had wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects, although the contribution of one-child restrictions to the broader program has been the subject of controversy. Its efficacy in reducing birth rates and defensibility from a human rights perspective have been subjects of controversy.
A propaganda painting in Guangdong Province promotes the idea of a nuclear family with a single child. The text reads "Planned child birth is everyone's responsibility."
The Danshan, Sichuan Province Nongchang Village people Public Affairs Bulletin Board in September 2005 noted that RMB 25,000 in social compensation fees were owed in 2005. Thus far 11,500 RMB had been collected, so another 13,500 RMB had to be collected.
Propaganda slogan on a building at Yangxin County, Hubei, China, reading "an IUD after the first child, tubal ligation after the second"
A roadside sign in rural Sichuan: "It is forbidden to discriminate against, abuse or abandon baby girls."