On criminal abortion in America

by Horatio Robinson Storer

Such are the confessions, independently given, of high-minded and honorable medical men. No more can be added, no less would have been true.

It must be granted, then, that a bold and manly utterance of the truth, combining as this must, contradiction of the error and denouncement of the crime, should be made by the members of the profession on every occasion. By this course it is plain that a healthier moral tone would be made to prevail in the community, the crime would become of rarer occurrence, and the laws, such as they are, would be more faithfully attempted to be enforced.

But it has been shown that the laws on the subject of criminal abortion are radically imperfect and defective, and that this is attributable, wholly, to a medical cause. We assert, therefore, that not only is it the duty of the profession as individual components of society, but more especially as medical men, to see them amended, and to leave no means untried, no effort unmade, for the attainment of this end.

“Physicians alone,” says Hodge in his Introductory Address, “can rectify public opinion, they alone can present the subject in such a manner that legislators can exercise their powers aright in the preparation of suitable laws; that moralists and theologians can be furnished with facts to enforce the truth upon the moral sense of the community, so that not only may the crime of infanticide be abolished, but criminal abortion properly reprehended, and that women in every rank and condition of life may be made sensible of the value of the fœtus, and of the high responsibility which rests upon its parents.”[270]

It has been stated, indeed publicly avowed by a medical body,[271] that when a physician “shall become cognizant of any attempt unlawfully to procure abortion, either by persons in the profession or out of it, it shall be his duty immediately to lodge information with some proper legal officer, to the end that such information may lead to the exposure and conviction of the offender.”

This doctrine is doubtless true to a great extent, but it cannot be applied to the confidential disclosures of patients themselves, which no man has a right to reveal, unless constrained by the direct command of the court, at which, it has been ruled, even professional secrets must be divulged.[272]

It follows, from the evidence we have now adduced, that if it be the duty of the profession to urge upon individuals the truth regarding this crime, it is equally their duty to urge it upon the law, by whose doctrines the people are bound; and upon that people, the community, by whose action the laws are made.

And this should be done by us, if we would succeed in suppressing the crime, not by separate action alone, but conjointly, as the profession, grandly representing its highest claim,—the saving of human life.

Every step toward this end should be hailed with enthusiasm. The late action of the State Society of Massachusetts, directly resulting from professional agitation of the subject, deserves praise and imitation; the body referred to having passed a series of resolutions to the following effect: “That the Fellows of the Massachusetts Medical Society regard with disapprobation and abhorrence all attempts to procure or promote abortion, except in cases where it may be necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life; and that no person convicted of such attempt, can, consistently with its by-laws, any longer remain a fellow of the society.”[273]