Emma Milne, Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed Mother
| Published date | 01 October 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745221109536 |
| Date | 01 October 2023 |
Emma Milne, Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed
Mother, Emerald Publishing: Bingley UK, 2021; 185 pp (including index).
ISBN: 978-1-83909-621-1
As the abortion debate continues to rage in the United States, this book comes as a
reminder of the ways in which English law has regulated women’s reproduction and fer-
tility and continues to do so. Judging the Failed Mother joins a growing area of feminist
literature which explores, critiques and challenges the ways in which society responds to
women and their decision-making during pregnancy and birth. Drawing on court tran-
scripts to analyse the cases of 15 women who have been convicted of offences associated
with the deaths of their newborns or foetuses, Milne examines the role of gendered norms
in both legislation and courtroom discourse. Applying broader terminology than that sug-
gested in the book’s title, Milne uses “suspicious perinatal death”and “suspected peri-
natal killing”to reflect her interest in acts beyond those pertaining to homicide.
Milne’s terminology therefore incorporates circumstances in which a pregnant woman
has caused the death of her foetus/baby between 24 weeks gestation to 24 hour post
birth. Noting the breadth of offences with which women were convicted - ranging
from murder, manslaughter, infanticide, administering poison with intent to procure a
miscarriage, concealment of birth and child cruelty –the book is a skilful, multidisciplin-
ary approach to a difficult topic which draws on sociology, law, feminist theory and
history.
The book is split into seven chapters. The first introduces the thrust of Milne’sargu-
ment. While she acknowledges the role of the criminal law in holding people respon-
sible for individualised behaviour, Milne contends that in cases of suspicious perinatal
deaths, focus should be on society and its structures. These Milne insists, are what
create the situation in which a vulnerable woman experiencing a crisis pregnancy
believes her only viable option is to end the life of her late term foetus or newborn.
Judging the Failed Mother is therefore the culmination of Milne’s interrogation of t hese
wider social structures, and in particular the social norms underpinning how society per-
ceives ‘good’mothers should behave. In the same chapter Milne also introduces the idea
that a woman’s perceived failure to reach these social ideals plays a crucial role in her ultim-
ate criminalisation and punishment; in essence, the criminal law serves to reinforce existing
sex-based oppression and is driven by discriminatory ideas about women and their role in
society.
In chapter 2, Milne contextualises the 15 cases of perinatal deaths examined in the
book. Her aim with this is not to analyse the individual psychological or psychiatric cir-
cumstances of the women involved. Instead, she unpacks the academic understanding of
concealed and denied pregnancies and explores the literature pertaining to the connection
between crisis pregnancies and neonaticide, the latter reflecting the language used in such
studies, as opposed to Milne’s preferred terminology and approach. In doing so, Milne
argues that there is no typical woman who commits neonaticide; rather her behaviour
is a product of the environment in which she lives, her vulnerabilities, crises and situ-
ational stresses. As such, the wider context of a woman’s life is what impacts how she
Book reviews 1163
To continue reading
Request your trial