The socialists, infanticide and abortion

Infanticide and abortion, as offenses punishable by law, entered into Portuguese law only with the enactment of the Penal Code in 1852, in force until the reform of 1982. The entry of these offenses into the legal regulations represented a profound conceptual change of the legislature with regard to childhood, since this stage of life enjoyed little legal consideration up to that point, but to which the socialists were not alien. Workers 'intellectuality denounced the working conditions of children, but also the parents' recourse to the death of their children, mainly for economic reasons. In this article we explore the legislative framework of the Eighth Centenary with regard to crimes of infanticide and abortion, the circumstances of the commission of the crime, and the reading of this theme in the socialist workers' means.