Infanticide

Infanticide, which occurs in primates, occurs when alpha males kill infants for one of many reasons. These include: population control, access to more resources, cannibalism, and reproductive competition.

Population Control

Because access to resources such as food can easily become limited, males will sometimes kill infants in order to limit the number of mouths to feed within the population. This reason for infanticide often occurs when there is high population density, or when a food shortage is in play.

Competition for Resources

Also dependent on the availability of food, competition for resources is specifically related to genetic dominance within the population. A male primate would not kill his own offspring because his instinct is to pass off as much genetic material as possible; thus, this male may kill other offspring that are not his own.

Cannibalism

Male primates have been observed practicing cannibalism, in which they kill and eat infants for survival. While this is not as evolutionarily advantageous as the above two reasons for infanticide, this does occur. It should be noted that primates will exhibit cannibalism after an infant’s natural death, as seen here: https://www.livescience.com/first-white-faced-capuchin-cannibalism.html

Reproductive Competition

Reproductive competition is one of the primary causes of infanticide, and occurs when male primates kill other offspring for two reasons: to make the population’s females fertile sooner, and to ensure that their genetic material has priority when mating.

Because female primates are often unable to reproduce so long as they are breastfeeding their young, male primates will sometimes kill the mothers’ infants in order to render the females fertile again. From there, the males will fertilize those females in order to pass off his genetic material.
It is evolutionary instinct for an individual to pass off his/her own genetic material; thus, male primates kill infants that are not his own in order to increase the frequency of his genetics within the population.

Infanticide in Humans

While infanticide occurs in primate populations for certain evolutionary benefits, infanticide has also frequently occured in human populations, thus proving that we are much closer to other primates than initially thought.

Though it is now illegal for obvious reasons, infanticide was used by humans in previous eras for the same reasons as other primates: population control and competition for resources. During a famine or a natural disaster, it would have been nearly impossible to take care of a newborn, thereby making infanticide a viable option for much older generations.

In fact, it is approxmiated that in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras, infanticide occured at a rate of 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide occured in both the New and Old Worlds, spanning from Japan across to North America.

A startling difference between ape/monkey infanticide versus human infanticide, hoewver, is that the mothers are far more likely to commit infanticide than are males. These mothers commit what is coined, “neonaticide,” in which they will murder their infatns within the first 24 hours of its life.

Another difference between primate infanticide is that humans would sacrifice newborns to supernatural entities, and while other primates do not do this, it is arguable that these human civilization sacrificed their children in believing that they were in fact helping themselves by appealing to deities. Two prominent examples of infant sacrifice occurred in what are now Tunisia and Colombia, proving that this kind of infanticide occured across the globe.

Moreover, nowadays, while it is still illegal, infanticide occurs at a much higher rate for girls. More specifically, in parts of East and Southeast Asia, girls are viewed as much less valuable than are males. In fact, in 2007, the United Nations estimated that 100 million girls worldwide had “gone missing,” and 80 million them had come from China and India. Details about how this directly violates the Right to Life can be found here: https://www.humanium.org/en/infanticide/.

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