American Infanticide

"Lewis uncovered truths every woman—and every partner—should know."

“This book challenges readers to take a hard look at a subject that most would rather ignore and asks us to reconsider everything we think we know about who commits infanticide, why it happens, and how society responds to it with sympathy or malice.”

"American Infanticide is poised to become a classic, making an immediate and profound contribution to the scholarly literature on maternal filicide, while also offering itself up as a vitally important teaching tool for college students, defense lawyers, and even policy makers. There's nothing quite like it in the field—it combines a rigorous, fascinating summary of history with a critical engagement with existing scholarship, then offers an unprecedented close study of a single case."
 

"American Infanticide is an outstanding book that provides detailed insights into the injustices that surround neonaticide cases in the United States. Lewis's in-depth look at the experience of Emile Weaver provides a rich assessment of the narratives constructed around such cases and the ways that women are scapegoated to preserve social narratives about motherhood. Lewis illustrates that unless society, the law, and the criminal justice system take active steps to assist vulnerable women who experience their pregnancies as a crisis, women will continue to labor alone, resulting in newborn babies dying and unjust convictions and punishment of women in desperate need of compassion and support."