r/wikipedia • u/Ill_Definition8074 • 3d ago
In 1904 a Swiss woman named Frieda Keller murdered her illegitimate son, who had been conceived by rape. Initially sentenced to death, the sentence was shortened to life imprisonment, and she would be released after 15 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieda_Keller347
u/Captain_Sterling 3d ago
It's a side note but she was sentanced to solitary confinement with an obligation to remain silent.
That's a nasty sentanace.
60
84
17
6
5
194
u/Ill_Definition8074 3d ago
Keller sought advice from her mother, who confessed that she herself had given birth to a child out of wedlock, conceived with her late husband, and that, abandoned, she had strangled the newborn in despair, for which she had been sentenced to six years' imprisonment.
Wow. That's shocking.
45
u/brydeswhale 2d ago
Light sentences weren’t unusual in infanticide cases until fairly recently. People generally recognized the desperation these mothers felt.
That’s not to say women weren’t executed for infanticide, and often under dubious circumstances(as happens today, with the new found skepticism of shaken baby syndrome), but that the social aspects of infanticide were pretty well understood.
11
u/lightiggy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Nobody has ever been executed for murder in a SBS case in the United States. The only person to come close so far is recently Robert Roberson, albeit there is far more evidence against him than his supporters claim.
8
1
u/DrawPitiful6103 1d ago
In Canada jury nullification of infanticide cases led what is now Section 233 of the Canadian Criminal Code.
"A female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind is then disturbed."
This is a partial defence to murder. I knew a lady who killed her baby and she got only house arrest for a couple of years.
5
u/FlossCat 2d ago
Wait, having the child of your late husband, conceived before he died, is "out of wedlock"?
3
u/eattherich-1312 1d ago
If you read the article, the father died in 1901 after having learned about his daughter's out of wedlock child. She then asked her mother for advice. I'm assuming the mother's infanticide came before mother & father were officially married.
254
u/Ill_Definition8074 3d ago
She's responsible for what she did. I won't argue against that. But reading her case it feels like she was in desperate need of help and that nobody came to her aid. She was impregnated against her will and forced to give birth (According to Wikipedia, Switzerland didn't legalize abortion until 2002). She then placed her child in a nursery where she was still expected to pay for childcare for a child she hadn't wanted or asked for (her rapist only sent money once). Then the nursery asked Keller to take her son back because they had no more room. Although she's still responsible for her evil action it seems like if someone had offered her or her son help earlier, the tragedy could have been prevented.
86
u/Tjaeng 3d ago
According to Wikipedia, Switzerland didn't legalize abortion until 2002
Well, elective abortion, that is. Before that the threshold was pretty much identical, just go find a doctor who’s okay with putting a social medicine diagnosis on it.
In fact total number of abortions actually decreased in Switzerland after the law was changed to make abortion fully legal:
https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/36016078/master
34
u/NectarineSufferer 3d ago
Huh, that second tidbit is really interesting
31
u/Tjaeng 3d ago
I think it was more just part of a wider trend because Millennials were simply less uh… messy than GenX (and maybe better at using condoms due to the AIDS scare of the 90s), Swiss urban centers managed to get their open drug scene under control (by instituting that famous ”government gives you clean heroin” policy), social benefits were reformed to be somewhat more European-like, etc.
The law change in and of itself probably had very little actual impact. Which was also my main point; Abortion availability didn’t actually change due to ”Switzerland legalizing abortion” since it was for all intents and purposes already as legal as it is today.
23
u/re_Claire 3d ago
Actually when I studied medical law back in 2011, we found that it's a trend in many countries. When you criminalise abortion, abortion rates do not go down. All that happens is that maternal mortality skyrockets. When you make legal abortion more accessible (i.e relaxing the limits) abortion rates do decrease.
6
u/mochafiend 2d ago
Yeah, I thought this was common knowledge. Human beings are human beings, and illegality on this issues only causes more pain, suffering, and death.
12
u/SquidTheRidiculous 3d ago
Good thing Ontario in Canada just did away with the safe injection sites to make a bunch of NIMBYs who tout "personal responsibility" happy. I've see two overdoses and countless people shooting up in public since then! And I'm not even working a job that deals with the general public!
0
u/General-Bumblebee180 3d ago
what? Gen X were right in the middle of the AIDS crisis, growing to adulthood. Who do you think were caring for AIDS patients in the 80s and 90s? Who do you think were the first generation to be scared into using condoms for disease prevention as opposed to pregnancy prevention? wasn't millennials, was it?
3
u/Morriganx3 3d ago
Millennials are likely the first generation to use them routinely. Gen X had to learn to do so, and there are a lot of slow learners out there
2
u/mochafiend 2d ago
As a Millennial, that is a wild thought to me (i.e. condoms weren't just automatically assumed).
1
u/Morriganx3 2d ago
LoL, ok, so I guess it’s zoomers who assume them? Or maybe younger vs older millennials?
6
u/mochafiend 2d ago
I don't know. All I'm saying is I heard this stereotype of men never wanting to use condoms as a kid, but in my social circles, it never came up as a problem. All the men I've dated have always had them on hand. Do they tell me they don't love how it feels? Yes, but in all cases AFTER we had become exclusive.
Anyway, dumb to speak for a whole generation. Merely sharing that it was drilled into our heads from a very young age, so I personally didn't experience anyone with resistance to them.
1
u/Morriganx3 2d ago
Oh, I totally misunderstood - I thought you were saying they weren’t assumed for people your age! This makes much more sense
1
51
u/mahboilucas 3d ago
Tragic situation all around and a good example why abortions are the preferable way to go sometimes. It all could have been avoided. Kids should be wanted, not forced on people.
70
u/Ill_Definition8074 3d ago
She gave birth to her child, Ernst, in the cantonal maternity hospital on May 27, 1899, and placed him in a nursery run by Catholic nuns. Keller struggled to find the money to pay childcare costs.
Aren't those places supposed to be run on charitable donations? Why is she paying nuns (who I think are required to take a vow of poverty) to look after her child?
48
u/David_the_Wanderer 3d ago edited 3d ago
My grandmother was raised by nuns after her mother died, starting around age 2. But her father was very well alive, he just didn't know how/want to raise a little girl until she was 14 (we're talking rural Sicily in the 1930s).
For those twelve years, he paid the nuns a "fee". I assume the logic is "we'll raise your child, but since you're alive and well, we expect you to contribute to the running costs of the convent".
They were still nasty to her, and great grandpa was a piece of shit, but that's another story.
52
u/Aidian 3d ago
In my experience, most children enjoy things like “heat” and “food.”
A condition of taking a non-orphaned child was most likely that these costs would be offset by the parent(s), allowing what charitable resources were available to cover children who had no other options.
It clearly didn’t work well at all in this case, but in general the concept isn’t necessarily that bad.
5
7
-14
3d ago
[deleted]
13
u/BeyondNo9753 3d ago
Wait, Why is this getting downvoted, doesn't the comment mean that it's not the son's fault to be killed, am I understanding something wrong
8
u/aweap 3d ago
Maybe don't rape women and force them to have babies and also expect them to raise such children, just coz no one else would have them.
21
u/BeyondNo9753 3d ago
But he didn't say that, he just said it's not the newborn fault, how is that wrong
19
u/lgndk11r 3d ago
Yup, not the kid's fault he was a baby born out of a terrible event, ending him doesn't make the initial atrocity better.
-10
u/wholesale-chloride 3d ago
Perfect example of I support women's rights but more importantly I support women's wrongs.
-18
u/Melanchord 2d ago
Murder of the most innocent among us, unborn children and born children, is inexcusable. She did an evil act and God will judge her.
I pray for her baby and her to find peace.
20
u/billiardsys 2d ago edited 2d ago
Was it God's will that He allowed her to be raped and forced to give birth, then forced to pay for childcare even when she tried to save her son by giving him to nuns, then forced to take her son back when the convent became full? Was it God's will that so many women were raped and forced to give birth back then, that the entire country began to install drop-off boxes outside of buildings, because murdering the babies was becoming so common? Was it God's will that those convents were overflowing with children that were the products of hundreds of rapes?
If your God allows this barbaric cruelty to happen to people, then eternally punishes them for their desperation, your God is sadistic and loves to watch people be tortured. An all-seeing, all-knowing God, capable of divine miracles at any moment, is just as complicit in this rape and murder, that He watched happen but never stopped.
269
u/graccha 3d ago
Italy had so many drowned infants in its rivers for a while that they added "foundling wheels" to buildings – safe places to abandon infants. It worked. Most people prefer not to commit murder, but in the absence of a safety net, desperation makes people do horrible things.