Murdered Pregnant Women
Murder of pregnant women is a type of homicide often resulting from domestic violence. Domestic violence, or intimate partner violence (IPV), is suffered by many people and in the majority of cases where the victim comes forward the victim is a woman. For many of these women the fear of harm includes not just themselves but their unborn child as well. Pregnancy-associated death has become more commonly termed as pregnancy-associated homicide. Recently, more focus has been placed on pregnancy-associated deaths due to violence. IPV may begin when the victim becomes pregnant. Research has shown that abuse while pregnant is a red flag for pregnancy-associated homicide.
The murder of pregnant women represents a relatively recently studied class of murder. Limited statistics are available as there is no reliable system in place yet to track such cases. Whether pregnancy is a causal factor is hard to determine.
Read more about Murdered Pregnant Women: Statistics, Laws and Policies, Intervention, Motives
Famous quotes containing the words pregnant women, murdered, pregnant and/or women:
“Pregnant women! They had that weird frisson, an aura of magic that combined awkwardly with an earthy sense of duty. Mundane, because they were nothing unique on the suburban streets; ethereal because their attention was ever somewhere else. Whatever you said was trivial. And they had that preciousness which they imposed wherever they went, compelling attention, constantly reminding you that they carried the future inside, its contours already drawn, but veiled, private, an inner secret.”
—Ruth Morgan (1920–1978)
“Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
—Mary Arrigo (20th century)
“Marriage is like a war. There are moments of chivalry and gallantry that attend the victorious advances and strategic retreats, the birth or death of children, the momentary conquest of loneliness, the sacrifice that ennobles him who makes it. But mostly there are the long dull sieges, the waiting, the terror and boredom. Women understand this better than men; they are better able to survive attrition.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)