Editing Infanticide (section)

====South Australia and Victoria====
According to [[William D. Rubinstein]], "Nineteenth-century European observers of [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal]] life in South Australia and [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] reported that about 30% of Aboriginal infants were killed at birth."<ref>{{Cite book | last = Rubinstein | first = W. D.| title = Genocide: a history| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nMMAk4VwLLwC&pg=PA16| publisher = Pearson Education| year = 2004| page = 16| isbn = 978-0-582-50601-5 }}</ref>

In 1881 [[James Dawson (activist)|James Dawson]] wrote a passage about infanticide among Indigenous people in the western district of Victoria, which stated that "Twins are as common among them as among Europeans; but as food is occasionally very scarce, and a large family troublesome to move about, it is lawful and customary to destroy the weakest twin child, irrespective of sex.
It is usual also to destroy those which are malformed."<ref name=VictorianAboriginalInfanticide>{{cite journal |title=Australian Aborigines: The Languages and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, Australia |journal=Nature |volume=24 |issue=623 |pages=529–30 |author=James Dawson |year=1881 |bibcode=1881Natur..24..529T |doi=10.1038/024529a0 |s2cid=4118217 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1948095 |access-date=2 July 2019 |archive-date=2 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191202202336/https://zenodo.org/record/1948095 |url-status=live }}<br />Reprinted in {{cite book |last=Dawson |first=James |year=2009|title=Australian Aborigines: the Languages and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, Australia |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-00655-2}}</ref>

He also wrote "When a woman has children too rapidly for the convenience and necessities of the parents, she makes up her mind to let one be killed, and consults with her husband which it is to be. As the strength of a tribe depends more on males than females, the girls are generally sacrificed.
The child is put to death and buried, or burned without ceremony; not, however, by its father or mother, but by relatives. No one wears mourning for it.
Sickly children are never killed on account of their bad health, and are allowed to die naturally."<ref name=VictorianAboriginalInfanticide />