That the discussion by them of this crime may very probably be the means, in great measure, of ultimately restraining or suppressing its perpetration.
That such will undoubtedly tend to save much health to the community and many human lives.
And, that, were there no other reason, it is clearly a duty.
I shall accordingly proceed to prove, so far as possible, the truth of every premise as yet stated, and to show the real nature and frequency of the crime: its causes; its victims; its perpetrators and its innocent abettors; its means and its proofs; its excuses, the deficiencies and errors of existing laws, and the various other obstacles to conviction; and, above all, so far as the present series of papers is concerned, the duty of the profession toward its general suppression.
I. IS ABORTION EVER A CRIME?
That this could have been doubted, least of all by mothers, however ignorant or degraded, would at first sight appear improbable. The sense of the public, however, its practice, its laws, being each proved to the contrary by the stubborn evidence of facts, the necessity of our preliminary inquiry will be made manifest.
To postpone, for the present, all other considerations, we will regard abortion in the abstract. It may be defined, best perhaps, as the violent and premature expulsion of the product of conception, independently of its age, viability, and normal formation. These characteristics are eliminated as having judicially and actually nothing to do with the essential nature of abortion, whereas in infanticide they are each elements of great importance; a difference that will hereafter be seen.
We further, in the present investigation, set aside all cases where abortion is the result of accident, or from natural causes, or justified by the rules of medicine, whether to save the mother or her child. We shall have occasion, in the subsequent course of our inquiries, to discuss this latter question somewhat fully, and to set forth unpleasant truths. We now confine ourselves exclusively to those instances where the attempt at premature expulsion of the product of conception is artificially induced and intentional, and where, so far as can be judged, it is not necessitated and would not otherwise have occurred.
In the first place, the laws do not recognize that unnecessary abortion, per se, is a crime.