ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book is concerned with the family and with the medico-legal issues associated with parenting. It attempts to review the topic of child homicide in general; the 'stranger killing' of children and its modern extension, the serial murder, are of great sociological and psychological interest, but are outside the present remit. The injury or killing of children by neglect within a two-parent family must, almost by definition, involve conspiracy between the cohabiters. The book discusses the unqualified approval of such a view may not come easily, particularly in the light of the distinction to be made between the mentally and the physically defective neonate. The battering maternal filicide as one who kills on a sudden impulse characterised by loss of temper resulting from a stimulus initiated by the victim. There is evidence that filicide is very much a female crime.
