ABSTRACT
In all societies, and for many reasons, regardless of views on and practices of abortion or infanticide, people have had unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children. And because unwanted children exist, there are always people willing to take some sort of drastic measures to end a pregnancy or dispose of a newborn baby. What makes a pregnancy or a child unwanted depends on myriad factors, including the role of the child in the particular society, religion and morality, the status of the child's parents, the society's attitudes toward children, women, and pregnancy, and ideas about bodily autonomy, legitimacy, and social welfare. What a mother or father of an unwanted child is willing to do, is capable of doing, or needs to do is dependent upon who is considered responsible for the pregnancy or unwanted child and what physical controls and legal rights a woman has over her body and her pregnancy. The answers to these questions may determine if the mother has an abortion, if one of the parents commits infanticide, or if another solution needs to be found or imposed, such as exile, social humiliation, or marriage to the father.
