The unwelcome child

by Henry Clarke Wright

This ante-natal education makes the man and woman, the Religion and Government, the Church and State, the social, educational, and commercial customs and institutions; and whoever attempts to write the biography of an individual, or the history of a Church or State, without reference to that education, and its controlling power over human character and destiny, fails to present the whole truth. He fails to trace effects to their causes, and must necessarily give a partial or perverted view of the phenomena of life.

“Maxima debetur pueris reverentia.” [The greatest reverence is due to childhood.] Thus sang the Roman poet Juvenal, two thousand years ago. Reverence childhood! If this be so important after the child is born, how much more reverence is due to ante-natal childhood? Be thy hands clean, thy robes spotless, thy looks, thy tones, thy mien, tender, sweet, loving, reverential, and thy heart filled and thrilled with pure worship, as thou enterest the temple of man’s ante-natal life! With these feelings, enter with me the very holy of holies of that temple, over which God spreads his wings of tenderest love and highest wisdom, as protecting cherubims and seraphims. Behold, there, the unconscious future man or woman, in a process of gestational organization and development, subjected to influences over which he or she has no control, and receiving a physical, intellectual, social and spiritual education that is to decide the character, for good or evil, for happiness or misery, in the great future that is opening before them.

See what a future is wrapped up in that unconscious embryo man or woman! It may be that the fates of states and empires are being inscribed, by some unseen power, on that body and soul. Already that unformed child may hold in its grasp the destinies of millions and of ages. But who is the educator? Who guides the pen that is inscribing peace or war, liberty or slavery, life or death, to those millions and those ages, and the scroll of destiny to states and kingdoms, to religions and governments on the soul of that unborn babe? The mother. Through her must come every element essential to constitute the body and soul of that child; and, as it passes through her system, it must receive the stamp of her physical, social and spiritual conditions.

Keep in mind the great fact, that the mental states of the mother, during gestation, must necessarily and permanently affect every particle of that substance which goes to make the organization and growth of her child, for good or evil. Whatever injuriously affects her thoughts and feelings, must permanently affect the physical, social, intellectual and moral aptitudes of her child.

Suppose that you have, undesignedly and without her consent, imposed maternity on your wife. On discovering the fact, it becomes most repulsive to her nature. She is not prepared to bear the cross and endure the crucifixion. Instantly, her soul is filled with murderous intent. She resolves to nip and crush the opening bud of life,—to procure abortion,—that is, to commit the deed of ante-natal child-murder. She does not feel that it is her child. She may regard it as yours, but she cannot acknowledge it as her own; and though it must receive its gestational development in her organism, she cannot tenderly and lovingly cherish and guard it, as bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, and soul of her soul. It is so in fact, but not in her feelings. She asked not for it; her soul repels it as an intruder, thrust upon her without her consent, and in contempt, it may be, of her earnest remonstrance,—for thus it often is. The child, she feels, has no right to an existence at her expense, and who shall say it has? An uninvited and hated intruder is exhausting her vital energies, and robbing her of that which no earthly treasures can ever restore or recompense. Through her physical suffering and mental anguish, an unbidden and loathed guest is feeding and thriving on her heart’s blood. Desperation, and the bitterness of death, are in her heart. Murder fills her soul towards your unconscious and innocent babe.

Who is responsible? On whom rests the guilt? It is your work. You forced that heavy burden upon her, and compelled her to bear it. You thrust your child, as an intruder, into the sacred domain of her life, to derive existence through her organism and at her expense, knowing that she was not prepared to welcome it, and to bend the forces of her nature to its growth and support; and contrary, it may be, to her earnest entreaties that she might be spared this pain and anguish till she was ready joyfully to welcome them. But you heeded not her prayer; you assumed the right to decide for her when she was prepared to endure these trials, and under what circumstances she should be a mother. You must have your stated gratification; you have abused your manhood and your wife, till this indulgence, as you think, has become as essential a want of your life as your daily food,—as the drunkard feels that alcohol is as essential as air to his existence and happiness; and so you impose on her a maternity which her soul abhors. You horribly tax her vital energies, “without her consent.” Murder is in her heart towards the uninvited and hated intruder you have introduced into the sanctuary of her life.

That mother, whose heart is thus filled with murder towards your child, is its educator! Into her hands you committed its destiny; and in the very act of so doing, you aroused in her heart the spirit of murder against the unconscious, innocent being whom she is to nourish into life. In the very act of committing the germ of the new immortal to her, you destroyed in her the power to be its loving, nursing mother. You knew that she would not and could not love and reverence it, and do justice to it; that she would hate it, and kill it if she could. All this you knew, yet you forced the charge upon her!

Suppose your child were born; would you commit its education and destiny to one, who, as you knew, would cherish murder in her heart towards it, who would “get rid of it” (as the phrase is), i.e., kill it, if she could without injury to herself,—yes, and kill it although at the risk of death to herself, such being her dread and her loathing of the charge? You would, yourself, be the murderer, if you did. Should you commit the post-natal education and happiness of your child to such a woman, knowing her utter repugnance to the charge, and her determination to “get rid of it” if she could,—would you not be responsible for the consequences, whether she killed it, or whether she preserved it alive, only to infuse into it a deadly wrath and revenge towards you, and towards all of human kind? You would. You knew she loathed its existence when you thrust it upon her, and that she would destroy the young life if she could; and that, if it lived to grow up under the training of such a spirit, it must be at war, in heart and life, with all its surroundings, must be unloved and unloving, hated and hating, and an object of anxiety and dread to all with whom it might chance to be associated.

What else do you do, when you impose on your wife a maternity unasked and abhorred? You commit the development and education of your child, during the most important and susceptible period of its existence, to one who assures you she is not prepared for the charge, who entreats you to spare her, and who loathes the very thought of its existence. Every element of her womanly nature, for the time being, recoils from its presence in her system. She pleads that you would spare her this burden, at this time, and until her nature calls for it, and is prepared joyfully to meet the martyrdom maternity must bring to her. Heedless of her prayers, and, it may be, of threats of death to your child, you demand the surrender of her person to your passion. Maternity ensues. Murder enters her heart towards your child at the same time. She tries to “get rid of it,”—to murder it. She succeeds. The young life you had committed to her care is nipped in the bud, as you were assured it would be before you resigned it to her keeping. Where rests the responsibility? On you, primarily and mainly. You murdered your own child, not, indeed, with your own hands,—you drove another to do the desperate deed, and that other, your wife, who came to you with a loving and trusting heart, to save and to be saved; and you, to gratify your selfish passion, drove her to the commission of the crime of ante-natal child-murder,—a crime that must forever weigh upon her soul like a mountain of guilt and shame; a deed, after the doing of which, no true woman can ever, in this life, stand proud and stainless, in conscious innocence and dignity, before the tribunal of her womanhood. She has done a deed for which great Nature can find no excuse but ignorance; but which, even when done in ignorance, she regards as a violation of her just laws, and punishes as such, with appropriate penalties,—the loss of self-respect, and the consciousness of degradation.

Yet all this suffering, anguish, crime and conscious degradation, you, the husband, have forced upon her, solely for the momentary, and, under the circumstances, most unnatural, gratification of your sensual passion,—a passion which, when controlled by manly love and wisdom, and held in abeyance to the health, purity, and happiness of your wife and children, would bring only honor to their hearts and to your home, but which, when thus indulged without regard to the wishes and conditions of your wife, and merely for your personal pleasure, spreads crime, pollution, misery and death, all around.