CONTRIBUTIONS
TO
OBSTETRIC JURISPRUDENCE.
NO. I.
CRIMINAL ABORTION.
By the Common Law and by many of our State Codes, fœtal life, per se, is almost wholly ignored and its destruction unpunished; abortion in every case being considered an offence mainly against the mother, and as such, unless fatal to her, a mere misdemeanor, or wholly disregarded.
By the Moral Law, the wilful killing of a human being at any stage of its existence is Murder.
In undertaking the discussion at length of this subject, three preliminary facts must be assumed:—
First.—That if abortion be ever a crime, it is, of necessity, even in isolated cases, one of no small interest to moralist, jurist, and physician; and that when general and common, this interest is extended to the whole community and fearfully enhanced.
Secondly.—That if the latter assumption be true, both in premise and conclusion, neglected as the crime has been by most ethical writers and political economists, hastily passed over by medical jurists,[1] and confessedly everywhere the great opprobrium of the law, often indeed by taunt that of medicine, either it cannot in the nature of things be suppressed, as by these facts implied, or its suppression has not been properly attempted. Discarding the former of these alternatives as alike unworthy of belief and proved false by facts hereafter to be shown, it will appear,
Thirdly.—That the discussion now broached is neither supererogatory nor out of place; further, that it is absolutely and necessarily demanded.
Moreover, in order that the importance and various bearings of the subject may be better appreciated, and that the writer’s position and aims may be more fairly understood, it must be borne in mind that there exist to this discussion certain positive and apparent objections, which have, in a measure, given rise to much of the silence and omission alluded to above, and are, in the main, as follows:—
1. The natural dislike of any physician to enter upon a subject on some points of which it is probable that a portion of the profession is at variance with him, either from disbelief in the alleged increase of criminal abortion, unnoticed for reasons shown hereafter, or from a blind reliance on Providence of itself to abate the evil.