ABORTION
THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By Joseph De Lee, M.D....
It is said that there is one abortion to eight labors, but in all probability it is more frequent than this. Almost half of the child-bearing women have had a miscarriage before the thirty-fifth year. Statistics are of questionable value because hospital figures do not represent the conditions of private practice. Further, many occur in first weeks and pass under the diagnosis of delayed or profuse menstruation. Finally, many abortions are deliberately concealed. Page 426.
PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By J. Clifton Edgar, M.D.
Immediate dangers of abortions are: hemorrhage, retention of an adherent placenta, sepsis, tetanus, perforation of the uterus. They also cause: sterility, anemia, malignant diseases, displacements, neurosis, and endometritis. Pages 338–9.
TRUCHTABTREIBUNG UND PRAVENTIVVERKEHR, IN ZUSAMMENHANG MIT DEM GEBURTENRUCKGANG; Eine Medizinische, Juristische und Sozialpolitische Betrachtung von Dr. Max Hirsch. Wurtzburg, Kabitzsch Verlag, 1914.
He who would combat abortion and at the same time assail contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious diseases and forbid disinfection. For contraceptive measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion. The use of contraceptive measures is largely responsible for the fact that the number of abortions does not increase immeasurably. The apprehension is perfectly justified that the prohibition of contraceptive measures would enormously increase the practice of abortion with its dangerous consequences for the life and health of women. P. 131–2.
America has a law since 1873, if I am not mistaken, which prohibits by criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. It follows therefore, as I have already stated in my introduction, that America stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of abortions. P. 132.
THE DISEASES OF SOCIETY AND DEGENERACY. The Vice and Crime Problem. G. F. Lydston, M.D., Professor of Genito-Urinary Surgery, State University of Illinois; Professor of Criminal Anthropology, Chicago; Kent College of Law; Member of the American Medical Association, etc., etc. The Riverton Press, Chicago, 1912.
The familiar cry of “public demand” would fit the abortion business better than it does some other things. The evil is wide-spread, both in and out of matrimony. Its existence is recognized “under the rose” as a social necessity, yet the law calls it murder. For every man and woman caught in its commission and punished a thousand escape detection.
THE DISEASES OF SOCIETY AND DEGENERACY. G. F. Lydston.
In many instances abortion results directly in the death of the woman. Such are the consequences resulting from ungoverned natural law on the one side, and moral on the other. It must be confessed that an element of sympathy is evoked by the mental distress of the unfortunate woman who is extra-matrimonially pregnant. P. 370.
SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY. Wm. J. Robinson, Critic and Guide. 1912.
I have gone on record with the statement that about a million abortions are brought about every year in the U. S. Exact statistics are not and never will be available, but I am sure that my estimate is very conservative, and that three million would be nearer the truth. Justice John Proctor Clark stated that 100,000 abortions are performed annually in New York City alone, and if these figures are correct, then the number for the U. S. would be in the neighborhood of two and a half million. P. 158.
There is one measure and one only which will positively do away with the evil of abortion and that is teaching people how to prevent conception. P. 164.
ABORTION AND ECONOMIC NECESSITY. (Hirsch).
According to a report in the Medical Record 80,000 abortions are performed annually in New York and only one case in 1,000 is brought before the authorities.
According to Lewin it has been determined by court investigations that there are at least 200 people in New York who make a profession of performing abortions.
It has been estimated that 2,000,000 abortions are performed annually in the U. S. P. 7.
Bertillon estimates the number of criminal abortions in Paris at 50,000 annually, in Lyons at 19,000. (Le depopulation de la France). P. 8.
We must first attack a very wide-spread fallacy, namely that abortion is more prevalent among unmarried girls than among married women. In other words, that it is concomitant with free sex relations. This fallacy is exploded by practical medical experience as well as by observation and statistics of social conditions. P. 23.
Among the causes of criminal abortion the fear on the part of the woman of the pains and dangers of confinement plays a not inconsiderable role. P. 54.
In marriage the cause for the practice of abortion springs in most cases from economic necessity. Most frequently this necessity is a genuine dire need arising from overcrowded quarters, lack of food and clothing, sickness and lack of employment. P. 33.
This economic need finds its most obvious expression in the congestion of the city populations. P. 34.
The dangers of childbirth are still serious enough to cause a certain degree of uneasiness in the woman and the family circle. This foreboding is due partly to our higher valuation upon health and life, and also to a shifting of pre-eminence from a solely generative function in women to other interests in their life. P. 84.
This greater consideration and valuation of woman’s individuality is the expression of continued progress and a higher culture. P. 87.
TRUCHTABTREIBUNG UND PRAVENTIVVERKEHR, In Zusammenhang mit dem Geburtenruckzang; Eine medizinische, juristische und sozialpolitische Betrachtung von Dr. Max Hirsch, Wurtzburg, Kabitzsch Verlag, 1914.
In Chicago six to ten thousand abortions are performed yearly, of which 75–90% are married women. P. 7.
I believe I may say without exaggeration that absolutely spontaneous or unprovoked abortions are extremely rare, that the vast majority—I should estimate it at more than 80% of abortions have a criminal origin. P. 9.
We may affirm that next to sexual diseases, abortion and its consequences are the most important factor in the etiology of chronic genital inflammations and of sterility. P. 9.
Our examinations have informed us that the largest number of abortions are performed on married women. This fact brings us to the conclusion that contraceptive measures among the upper class, the practice of abortion among the lower class, are the real means employed to regulate the number of offspring. P. 32.
THE SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN IN ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL AND HYGIENIC ASPECTS. E. Heinrich Kisch. Translated by M. Eden Paul, M.D. Rebman & Co., New York.
A means of insuring artificial sterility, which in all civilized countries is punishable as a criminal offense, and which is nevertheless very frequently practiced, is the artificial induction of abortion. Especially in North America it would appear that there exist regular professional abortionists. P. 413.
THE FAMILY AND THE NATION. A Study in Natural Inheritance and Social Responsibility. Wm. Cecil Dampier Whetham, M.A., F.R.S. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Catherine Durning Whetham. Longmans Green & Co., N. Y., Bombay and Calcutta, 1909.
There is no finality, a nation must either be losing or gaining ground, either improving or degenerating. Hence the scientific study of the effect of the existing conditions of any time on the rates of reproduction of different stocks of the nation, should be the chief work of the sociologist, and the control of these conditions the supreme duty of the statesman. P. 5.
CHAPTER VII
PROSTITUTION, FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS AND VENEREAL DISEASES
In this chapter it is shown that the feeble-minded parent is many times as prolific as the normal parent. A considerable percentage of girls living in prostitution are mentally defective, and if careful statistics were collated it would be found that 95 per cent. of these women come from large families. The feeble-minded should be instructed how to prevent conception, thereby diminishing prostitution and its invariable accompaniment,—venereal disease.
SOME PROBLEMS OF THE SOCIAL EVIL. Hon. Chas. N. Doodnow, Judge of the Morals Court, Chicago. “The Light.” B. S. Steadwell, Editor. Jan.-Feb., 1915.
The Court of Morals conducted an investigation of prostitution along three lines, social, physical and mental. In the first report, April 10th, to December 31st, 1913, 639 cases were examined, representing every race, creed, and nationality. 334 were colored, 298 white, 2 Armenian, 1 Japanese. Occupations: 225 housework, 174 waitresses, 136 laundresses, 83 clerks or cashiers, 6 seamstresses, 4 stenographers, 1 trained nurse, 1 manicurist, 24 scrub women, 110 had no occupation. Venereal disease in infectious stage was diagnosed in 108 cases. 315 showed evidence of having syphilis, and of the remaining 116, had bacteriological tests been made, 50% at least would have been found victims of the disease. As to intelligence, over 400 were mentally deficient, two were found to be insane, and 68 were little more than imbeciles, having mental capacity of less than a seven year old child. Later statistics of 100 women going through the Court were taken showing again that usually their work was of a character which required the least skill and mental effort, and that 97% either were, or had been afflicted with disease, and that the majority were mentally deficient. We did not have any imbeciles, or idiots from the Morals Court, though quite a number of the morons were of the low grade type bordering on the imbecile group. In other words, 89.37% of our cases are feeble-minded, or borderland. If we leave out the borderland cases it shows that 85% of our cases, exclusive of the insane, alcoholics, and drug habitues are distinctly feeble-minded. This finding is interesting since it corresponds to our findings in the Boys’ Court, where we found 84.49% were feeble-minded. It is therefore to be clearly seen here that with the girl defective-delinquent, as with the boy, the basic cause is feeble-mindedness. This is the intrinsic cause, which environment and other causes on the whole, are extrinsic.
REPORT OF CHICAGO MORALS COURT. December, 1913.
Dr. W. J. Hickson of the Psychopathic Laboratory tested 126 cases excluding insane, alcoholics and drug addicts, for the Chicago Morals Courts, and found 85.83% distinctly feeble-minded.
Of 639 prostitutes examined by a woman physician for the Chicago Morals Court, over 400 were mentally deficient; 2 were found to be insane; 68 were little above imbeciles, having mental capacities of less than a seven year old child.
The State Training School for Girls, at Geneva, Ill., has a population of about 400, of whom a great majority have been committed for sexual immorality. Dr. Olga Bridgman reports that of 118 consecutive cases that were examined upon entry, 105 (or 89%) were graded as feeble-minded. 14 of the 118 had been committed as dependents or uncontrollable. Of the 104 remaining all of whom had been sexually immoral 101 were graded as feeble-minded while only 3 were found normal according to the Binet test.
THE LAW OF POPULATION. Its Consequences and its Bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals. Annie Besant. Asa K. Butts, Publisher. 1879.
The more marriage is delayed the more prostitution spreads. Prostitution is an evil we should strive to eradicate, not to perpetuate, and late marriage, generally adopted would most certainly perpetuate. Marriage is deferred owing to the ever increasing difficulty of maintaining a large family in anything like comfort. Celibacy is not natural to man or to woman, all bodily needs require their legitimate satisfaction, and celibacy is a disregard of natural law. Until nature evolves a neuter sex, celibacy will ever be a mark of imperfection. P. 27–8.
But the knowledge of these scientific checks would, it is argued, make vice bolder, and would increase unchastity among women by making it safe. And if so, are all to suffer, so that one or two already corrupt at heart may be preserved from becoming corrupt in act? Are mothers to die solely that impure women may be held back, and wives to be sacrificed that the unchaste may be curbed. As well say that no knives must be used because throats may be cut, no matches sold because incendiarism may result from them, no pistols allowed, because murders may be committed by them. P. 38.
SLAVERY OF PROSTITUTION. A Plea for Emancipation. Maude E. Miner, Secretary of the New York Probation and Protective Association. McMillan Co., 1916.
The study of young women in prostitution shows that mental deficiency is an important factor in delinquency. 34%, or approximately ⅓ of 577 delinquent young women at Waverly House were so retarded in mental development as to be considered feeble-minded, and others were mentally retarded enough to need protection and over-sight. Close knowledge of the individual girls convince us that their deficiency facilitates their entrance into prostitution. P. 43.
Explanation of the mental deficiency of these wayward girls which has predisposed them to prostitution is usually found in bad inheritance. P. 44.
A feeble-minded girl was found to be one of 13 illegitimate children to whom her mentally deficient mother had given birth. P. 46.
Over-crowding in rooms, tenements, and neighborhoods is an obvious menace. In congested sections of the lower part of New York, large families, to which these girls belong, were herded into two or three narrow rooms, 12 in three small rooms, seven in two rooms, or a family of five eating and sleeping and living in a single room. P. 55.
Have we realized that every feeble-minded girl is a potential prostitute? Have we realized that feeble-minded mothers give birth to large numbers of children doomed to mental deficiency? Have we realized what this will ultimately mean in deterioration of human stock and in the complication of social problems? To stop the stream which is bringing into prostitution large numbers of mentally deficient girls and women, we must safe-guard these girls and prevent them from having offspring. Evidence presented to the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded in Great Britain, and careful studies in America, show conclusively that mental deficiency tends strongly to be inherited, and that feeble-minded mothers are more prolific than normal women. P. 267.
DOWNWARD PATHS. An Inquiry into the Causes which Contribute to the Making of the Prostitute. With a foreword by A. Maude Royden. T. Bell & Sons, Ltd. London.
It is astonishing to find experts denying the element of economic pressure as a factor in the creation of the prostitute. It is an influence constantly present and it is only when we interpret it to mean actual physical starvation that we can say it is rarely a determining factor. Economic pressure does not begin with starvation, it ends there. There is again the long strain of underfeeding and overwork, of the absence of interest, variety and color, and all that makes life worth living to a human being. Poverty often means isolation, and isolation the absence of all those ties which keep us in our place in the social order, and make it worth while to preserve our self-respect. To be without this is to be constantly in danger and it is economic pressure which has thrust many over the brink of the precipice, though few would say their fall was due to actual starvation. P. 10.
Intimately connected with this aspect of the question is that of home and housing, especially of the child. The age at which children are first corrupted is almost incredibly early, until we consider the nature of the surroundings in which they grow up. Insufficient space, over-crowding, the herding together of all ages and both sexes, these things break down the barriers of a natural modesty and reserve. Where decency is practically impossible, unchastity will follow, and follow almost as a matter of course. There are certainly natural defences in the right instincts of young people brought up in the right kind of home, which we look for in vain among those who have never had space enough for growth, or privacy enough for refinement. P. 11.
We must allot to bad housing and over-crowding a foremost place, not only as undermining the physical health which conduces to normal sexual relationship, but also as a danger to the wholesome innocence of youth. P. 21.
It cannot be too strongly impressed upon persons interested in the housing problem that over-crowding means a violation of childhood in every degree, from the indecencies of mere childish horse-play to complete debauchery. P. 22.
There are two types of feeble-minded girls who are almost inevitably destined to prostitution. There is first the large proportion whose sexual inclinations are abnormally strong, or whose power of self-control over natural impulses is abnormally weak. 2—There is the large class who are non-resistant. They have no active impulse to seek out men, but they will yield to any one who approaches them. There are three important factors that drive the feeble-minded into prostitution by excluding them from other occupations. 1—They often lose their characters at a very early age. A marked characteristic of the feeble-minded is the precocity of their sexual impulse. 2—It is easy enough for any feeble-minded girl to get and keep light, unskilled work at girl’s wages, but not so easy for her to pass like the girl of normal intelligence, from girl’s to woman’s work at the age of 17 or 18, for she is rarely worth woman’s wages. Therefore she finds herself bored by monotonous work and low pay just at the time that she is particularly attractive to man, and her sexual impulses are at their strongest. Very naturally the feeble-minded girl with her incapacity to perceive the consequences turns from her unsatisfying employment to the new life of excitement and easy gain that offers itself. 3—If feeble-minded girls do succeed in getting respectable situations they are very likely to lose them because of their lack of intelligence and general inefficiency. And even if they should discharge their duties in a satisfactory manner they have a curious distaste for staying for any time in one place, and tend to drift from situation to situation. P. 127–128.
Another characteristic of the feeble-minded is their notorious fertility. The superior fertility of the feeble-minded has been proved beyond dispute by statistical inquiry.
DELINQUENCY AND MENTAL DEFICIENCY. Dr. Olga Bridgman. The Survey, June 13, 1914.
Report of examination of 118 consecutive admissions at the Illinois Training School for Girls at Geneva. Of the 118, 105, or 89%, showed a retardation of three years or more, thus ranking as mentally deficient, 6% were backward, being one or two years retarded, and six, or 5% were graded as normal. According to the Binet tests then, 97% of the children sent to this institution are mentally defective.
COMMERCIALIZED PROSTITUTION IN NEW YORK CITY. George Kneelands. Century Co., New York, 1913. (Chapter by Katherine B. Davis on a Study of Prostitutes Committed from New York City to the State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills.)
It is difficult to get at the actual truth as to the number of children the unmarried women have had. The Table shows the admission of 209 women on this point. There are 73 unmarried women who admit having had children, 16 were pregnant at the time of entering, and 18 had previously been pregnant. 428 claimed to have had no children. In this connection it may not be amiss to note the fact that an unmarried woman who has had a child is more apt to belong to the mentally defective class. Of the 647, 20.09% were shown to have hereditary degenerate strains, and 20.56% venereal disease. Page 180.