Note 218 — Chapter XVII · THE KILLING OF PARENTS, SICK PERSONS, CHILDREN—FETICIDE

Bentham maintained (Theory of Legislation, p. 264 sq.) that infanticide ought not to be punished as a principal offence. “The offence,” he says, “is what is improperly called the death of an infant, who has ceased to be, before knowing what existence is,—a result of a nature not to give the slightest inquietude to the most timid imagination; and which can cause no regrets but to the very person who, through a sentiment of shame and pity, has refused to prolong a life begun under the auspices of misery.”