The argument that men kill pregnant women to prevent child support payments does not seem to be supported by research. It is an insult to normal, decent men.

Abuse during pregnancy: strategies

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/164/11/1578

A 2002 General Accounting Office report, "Data on Pregnant Victims and Effectiveness of Prevention Strategies Are Limited," warns that figures on maternal homicide "lack comparability.... Estimates...cannot be generalized or projected to all pregnant women."

Current studies vary too widely in methodology, conclusions and far too often in the agendas propelling research.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

GAO study http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02530.pdf

Moreover, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reports that the total number of women murdered has been declining since 1993.

The DOJ also finds that the number of women murdered by "intimates" (a spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend) has also fallen since 1993. Are maternal homicides somehow rising as the other categories fall?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

"The Massachusetts study documents that for every 100,000 births, 9 women died from injury related causes" and notes that about 1/3 of those deaths were "intimate partner homicides." Thus, the risk of becoming a maternal homicide victim is about 3 in 100,000. http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

Massachusetts study establishing numbers http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/1222davis.html

Poverty and living in an economically distressed neighborhood are the two biggest risk factors for pregnant women becoming a victim of violence. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/205004.htm Middle class women (who might actually get a settlement and/or child support, are actually less at risk. It is in neighborhoods where the crime risk is high already that both initimate and non-intimate violence against pregnant women seems to increase

This excludes information on schizophrenics, etc some of whome seem to focus on pregnant women, and simple muggers, carjackers, and robbers, who also see pregnant women as vulnerable because of the physical limitations of pregnancy. Those are taken as given in several studies. mentally ill women trying to steal babies are given far less academic attention, although they do get sensationalistic media attention. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/17/national/main661617.shtml ; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14954419/

Information on the limitations of the JAMA study that provided the stats on pregnancy/homicide link

Dr. Harold Weiss, of the Center for Injury Research and Control, identified another way in which the study may be misleading. In a letter to JAMA following the publication of Horon and Cheng's study, Weiss highlighted how Maryland's policy regarding autopsies may contribute to an under-counting of death due to motor-vehicle accidents. The Maryland medical examiner's office requires an autopsy for all murder victims, but does not for all auto accidents. This means that while medical-examiner reports identified all murdered pregnant women — and, in fact, these reports were the source of 100 percent of Horon and Cheng's identification of pregnant homicide victims — the lack of data on women who die in motor-vehicle accidents means that Horon and Cheng likely missed some pregnant women who died in auto accidents.

Weiss also highlighted the pitfalls of assuming that the findings from a study conducted in Maryland are nationally representative. It turns out that Maryland has many more homicides per capita than the rest of the country. Between 1993 and 1998, among Maryland women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years), there were 499 homicides and 605 motor vehicle deaths — a ratio of .82 homicides for each motor vehicle death. Nationally, however, there were 19,306 homicides and 41,474 motor-vehicle deaths, or .47 homicides per motor-vehicle death. Thus even if homicides are the leading cause of death among pregnant women in Maryland, the same trend doesn't necessary follow nationally.

The General Accounting Office and Center for Disease Control have also researched the relationship between pregnancy and violence, and cast additional doubt on the alleged link between pregnancy and homicide. One report concluded that "current study findings suggest that for most abused women, physical violence does not seem to be initiated or to increase during pregnancy.... In one study we reviewed, only 2 percent of women who reported not being abused before pregnancy reported abuse during pregnancy. The same study also found that, for some women, the period of pregnancy may be less risky, with violence abating during pregnancy; 41 percent of the women who reported abuse in the year before pregnancy did not experience abuse during pregnancy."

Violence against women, including against pregnant women, is a serious problem. Each such death is a special tragedy — the loss of the woman compounded by the extinguished hope and promise of a new life. But overstating the frequency of these brutal acts minimizes the horror of each episode, confuses the public, and may lead to misallocated resources. We need a national discussion about how best to prevent violence against women — and an important element of that conversation must be separating fact from fiction. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/pol/241852075.html

It smacks of eugenics. Eugenics practitioners wanted the inferior to "not breed" and the superior racially/psuedoscientifically to "breed". It gives the choice of having or not having children a very loaded implication. People who decide not to have children are not "inferior" and people who do have children are not "inferior". We are all human.

Several of my friends are not having children. They have other priorities. that's fine. I have one child and another on the way. Ironically, it's not a big issue with the people I hang around with. I see this whole thing as manufactured drama.

Childfree or have children. It should be a positive choice.