How dare you, how dare any husband, commit the destiny of his child into the hands of one, who, as he knows, thus loathes the thought of its existence? How can you subject your child to the possibility of such a gestational organization and development; such an ante-natal education; or force upon your wife the suffering and anguish of a loathed and hated maternity, or the necessity of doing a deed from which the soul of every noble woman must shrink with sickening horror? You could not do this wrong to your wife and child, till your manhood was sunk in the mire of disgusting sensualism.
A loathed and hated maternity! A woman, a mother, shrinking with disgust and horror from the thought of giving existence to her child! A mother’s heart throbbing with murder toward the child over whose development and education it is presiding! Do you say this is strong language?—too strong? That it cannot be? Do you say a mother does not, cannot, hate and loathe her unborn babe? Why, then, does she kill it? Her spirit is known by its fruit. Is not her whole soul bent on its destruction, even at the risk of her own health and life?
“Abortion!” “Get rid of it!” Gentle terms, these; respectable, no doubt, as some count gentle and respectable; but used to cover a most foul, unnatural deed. Ante-natal child-murder alone can truly express the nature of the act. If no murderous hate is in the mother’s heart, why does she kill the child? If you saw a mother seeking to kill her child after it was born, knowing that she did it because its existence was hateful to her, and because she did not wish to bear the burden of its nursing and training, would you not conclude that her heart was filled with murder towards it? So when a woman is willing to imperil her own life, to outrage every womanly element of her being, and forfeit the conscious innocence and respect of her own soul, to inflict death upon her unborn child, you may be sure that a deep and terrible loathing and hatred are in her heart towards the new and expanding life which the husband for mere sensual gratification, has thrust upon her.
What means the wide-spreading disposition among men and women to procure and to palliate the murder of children before they are born? One thing is surely indicated by it, namely, the increasing sensualism of men, and their determination to gratify it without regard to consequences to their wives and children. It is a swift witness against their purity and nobleness, and shows an utter recklessness in the pursuit of sensual pleasure. It also opens the frightful depths to which woman can fall and has fallen. How many women of New England have on their souls, at this hour, the ineffaceable stain of ante-natal child-murder? How many bear in their physical organism the incurable results of this crime? How many families are now suffering from it? Go ask the men and women doctors, who, for gold, perpetrate this crime, and who shamelessly advertise their infamy. Tens of thousands of wives and mothers are to be seen, all over the country, at once the perpetrators and victims of this cruel and disgusting act; all, all to administer to the sensualism of men, who are called husbands! Husbands! the guilt is mainly yours; and the damnation is just. Beneath your foul wrong to their nature, your wives sink, and you must go down with them.
Ponder the following extract from a private letter, containing the experience of a wife and mother, in regard to enforced and hated maternity and ante-natal child-murder. The letter is of recent date; the writer and her family are known to me personally:
“Before we married, I informed him [the husband] of my dread of having children. I told him I was not yet prepared to meet the sufferings and responsibilities of maternity. He entered into an arrangement to prevent it, for a specified time. This agreement was disregarded. After the legal form was over, and he felt that he could now indulge his passion without loss of reputation, and under legal and religious sanctions, he insisted on the surrender of my person to his will. He violated his promise at the beginning of our united life. That fatal bridal night! it has left a cloud on my soul and on my home, that can never pass away on earth. I can never forget it. It sealed the doom of our union, as it does of thousands.
“He was in feeble health; so was I; and both of us mentally depressed. But the sickly germ was implanted, and conception took place. We were poor and destitute, having made no preparations for a home for ourselves and child. I was a stricken woman. In September, 1838, we came to ——, and settled in a new country. In the March following, my child, developed under a heart throbbing with dread and anguish at the thought of its existence, was born. After three months’ struggle, I became reconciled to my, at first, unwelcome child. But the impress of my impatience and hostility to its existence, previous to its birth, was on my child, never to be effaced; and to this hour, that child is the victim of an undesired maternity.
“In one year, I found I was again about to be a mother. I was in a state of frightful despair. My first-born was sickly and very troublesome (how could it be otherwise?), needing constant care and nursing. My husband chopped wood for our support. Of the injustice of bringing children into the world to such poverty and misery, I was then as sensible as now. I was in despair. I felt that death would be preferable to maternity under such circumstances. A desire and determination to get rid of my child entered into my heart. I consulted a lady friend, and by her persuasion and assistance, killed it. Within less than a year, maternity was again imposed upon me, with no better prospect for doing justice to my child. It was a most painful conviction to me; I felt that I could not have another child at that time. All seemed dark as death. I had begged and prayed to be spared this trial again, till I was prepared to accept it joyfully; but my husband insisted on his gratification, without regard to my wishes and conditions.
“I consulted a physician, and told him of my unhappy state of mind, and my aversion to having another child, for the present. He was ready with his logic, his medicines and instruments, and told me how to destroy it. After experimenting on myself three months, I was successful. I killed my child about five months after conception.
“A few months after this, maternity was again forced upon me, to my grief and anguish. I determined, again, on the child’s destruction; but my courage failed as I came to the practical deed. My health and life were in jeopardy; for my living child’s sake, I wished to live. I made up my mind to do the best I could for my unborn babe, whose existence seemed so unnatural and repulsive. I knew its young life would be deeply and lastingly affected by my mental and physical conditions. I became, in a measure, reconciled to my dark fate, and was as resigned and happy as I could be under the circumstances. I had just such a child as I had every reason to expect. I could do no justice to it. How could I?