“More Madden, a celebrated obstetrician of forty years’ experience, never performed it once.
“‘The brilliant achievements in abdominal surgery give assurance that the Cesarean section is not only a legitimate operation, but one almost free from danger; also, that the tragic scenes heretofore witnessed in certain cases, in which the destruction of the child was resorted to, may be relegated to history (A. P. Clarke).’”
Further on, Dr. Boislinière speaks more directly of abortion. He says:
“The principle once admitted that you are not justifiable in killing an innocent aggressor except in self-defence, equally prohibits any interference with early gestation.
“From the moment of conception the child is living. It grows, and what grows has life. ‘Homo est qui homo futurus,’ says an ancient and high authority.
“Therefore, fœticide is not permissible at any stage of utero-gestation.
“The killing of the defenceless fœtus is sometimes done in cases of uncontrollable vomiting of pregnancy, in cases of tubal or abdominal gestation, and the killing of the fœtus is done by electricity, injections of morphine in the amniotic sac, the puncturing of that sac, etc.
“This practice is too lightly adopted by thoughtless or conscienceless physicians. This practice is much on the increase. I once heard a known obstetrician of the old school say: ‘I would as lief kill, if necessary, an unborn child as a rat.’ So much for the estimate he put on the value of human life! O tempora! O mores!
“Is it not time that this wanton ‘massacre of the innocents’ should cease?
“Without wishing to load this paper with elaborate statistics, I shall furnish the latest arrived at in the two operations of craniotomy and Cesarean section.