More Words, Deeper Hole

Modern Western culture engaging in filicide is absurd, particularly as a compromise over abortion, but a survey of history shows that it's soundly within the realm of human nature. There were officials in ancient Sparta whose job was to examine all newborns and determine which were fit to live; other Greek states left it to the father to decide. In Rome the pater familias held the right to kill any of his children or grand children who displeased him. Tacitus, when he describes Hebrew culture in The Histories, mentions the Jewish prohibition on infanticide on a list of their supposedly barbaric customs.