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Fetal abduction refers to the rare crime of child abduction by kidnapping of an at term pregnant woman and extraction of her fetus through a crude cesarean section.[1] Dr. Michael H. Stone and Dr. Gary Brucato have alternatively referred to this crime as "fetus-snatching" or "fetus abduction."[2] Homicide expert Vernon J. Geberth has used the term "fetal kidnapping."[3] In the small number of reported cases, a few pregnant victims and about half of their fetuses survived the assault and non-medically performed cesarean.
Fetal abduction does not refer to medically induced labor or obstetrical extraction. The definition of the subject does not include compulsory cesarean sections[4] for medical reasons nor child removal from parents for court-approved child protection. However, the "Children of the Disappeared" (desaparecidos) in the Argentine Dirty War are an example of criminal fetal abduction in state institutions as detailed by testimonies on cesarean delivery on desaparecidas and child adoption in a military hospital.[5][6] Historical cases of cesarean extraction for fetal murder (not for child adoption) fall outside the subject definition.[7]
Fetal abductions typically start with the lie that the perpetrator is pregnant and often coincide with a fear of losing a romantic partner. Then the perpetrator murders a pregnant woman to claim the fetus as her own (as a stillborn baby or, if the fetus survives, as a newborn child).[8]
- ^ Walters, Joanna (December 2, 2015). "Fetal abduction: brutal attacks against expectant mothers on the rise in US". Guardian. Archived from the original on August 29, 2017. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
- ^ Michael H. Stone & Gary Brucato. The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2019).
- ^ "Baby ripped from murdered mom's womb under police guard at hospital". 2015-11-22. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
- ^ Francis R (1998). "Compulsory Caesarean sections: an English perspective". J Contemp Health Law Policy. 14 (2): 365–89. PMID 9693485. Archived from the original on August 31, 2017. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
- ^ Project Disappeared (2015). "La Sombra de Campo de Mayo Hospital militar – Partos de desaparecidas" (in Spanish).
Dos Partos – cesárea
- ^ "Report of Conadep – 1984 The Campo de Mayo Hospital". Nunca Más (Never Again). Retrieved August 31, 2017.
- ^ Szabó A (2015). "Sectio caesarea criminalis [Criminal caesarean section]" (PDF). Orv Hetil (in Hungarian). 156 (22): 901–2. doi:10.1556/650.2015.HO2524. PMID 26004550. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 30, 2017. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
- ^ "Fetal Abduction: Women Who Kill Pregnant Women for Their Babies". True Crime Blog. Retrieved January 15, 2024.