Child destruction is the name of a statutory offence in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Hong Kong and in some parts of Australia.
[4] During the second reading of the Preservation of Infant Life Bill 1928 to 1929, Lord Atkin said: As the noble and learned Lord has explained, the gap is that, whereas the mother of a child who kills it after it has a separate existence is guilty of what was the crime of murder and is now the lesser offence of infanticide, yet, if she kills the child in the actual course of delivery or within such a short time afterwards that it has not had and cannot be proved to have had a separate existence, it is not an offence.
[5]In England and Wales, the offence is created by section 1(1) of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929: (1) Subject as hereinafter in this subsection provided, any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother, shall be guilty of felony, to wit, of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction thereof on indictment to penal servitude for life: Provided that no person shall be found guilty of an offence under this section unless it is proved that the act which caused the death of the child was not done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother.
The defence suggestion that "viable" had a narrower meaning thus described fewer foetuses than "capable of being born alive" was rejected in 1991.
A registered medical practitioner who terminates a pregnancy in accordance with the provisions of the Abortion Act 1967 does not commit this offence.
[14] Child destruction is an "excluded offence" for the purposes of section 32 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982.
Since he had intended to kill the foetus in the womb, whereas in fact the baby died shortly after birth, he was convicted of manslaughter and attempted child destruction.
The offence is called "killing unborn child" and can be committed only around the time of childbirth[27] in Queensland,[28] Western Australia,[29] and the Northern Territory.
[32] The definition is somewhat broader in the Australian Capital Territory,[27][33] and comparably broad to English law in Tasmania[31] and South Australia.