Bad as Rosenzweig was, he was but one of a set who are so numerous in the city that they constitute one of the many distinct classes of vile men and women who infest it.
The readers of certain of the city newspapers are familiar with the advertisements of these people, such as the following:
A LADIES’ PHYSICIAN, DR. ---, PROFESSOR of Midwifery, over 20 years’ successful practice in this city, guarantees certain relief to ladies, with or
without medicine, at one interview. Unfortunates please call. Relief certain. Residence, ---. Elegant rooms for ladies requiring nursing.
IMPORTANT TO FEMALES. DR. AND MADAME --- (25 years’ practice,) guarantee certain relief to married ladies, with or without medicine, at one interview. Patients from a distance provided with nursing, board, etc. Electricity scientifically applied.
A CURE FOR LADIES IMMEDIATELY. MADAME ---’s Female Antidote. The only reliable medicine that can be procured; certain to have the desired effect in twenty-four hours, without any injurious results.
SURE CURE FOR LADIES IN TROUBLE. NO injurious medicines or instruments used. Consultation and advice free.
These are genuine advertisements, taken from a daily journal of great wealth and influence, which every morning finds its way into hundreds of families. The persons thus advertising are all of them members of the most dangerous and disreputable portion of the community. They do not, indeed, attack citizens on the streets, but, what is worse and more cowardly, exert their skill for the purpose of destroying human life which is too helpless to resist, and which has no protector. These persons impudently assert that they do not violate the law in their infamous trade, but it needs scarcely a physician’s endorsement to make plain to sensible persons the fact that successful abortions are extremely rare. Indeed, the secrecy with which the infamous business is carried on, shows that its practitioners are conscious of its criminality. The laws of all the States punish the procuring of an abortion with severe penalties. That of the State of New York declares, “The wilful killing of an unborn quick child by any injury to the mother of the child, which would be murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, shall be deemed manslaughter in the first degree.” The punishment for this crime is an imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than seven years. The law further declares: “Every person who shall administer to any woman pregnant with a quick child, or prescribe for any such woman, or advise and procure
for any such woman, any medicine, drugs, or substance whatever, or shall use or employ any instrument or other means, with intent thereby to destroy such child, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, shall, in case the death of such child or such mother be thereby produced, be deemed guilty of manslaughter in the second degree.” The law prescribes as the punishment for this crime an imprisonment of not less than four years’, nor more than seven years’ duration.
This is seemingly very severe, but in reality it is not. Now that science has established the fact that to expel the fœtus at any period of pregnancy is to take life, or, in other words, to commit murder, the law should make the selling of drugs or medicines for such purpose a felony, and should punish with great severity any person publicly exposing or privately offering them for sale. Such a statute, so far from embarrassing any reputable member of the medical profession, would be hailed with joy by all; for science has progressed so far, that the cases in which it is necessary to produce an abortion for the sake of saving the mother’s life are extremely rare. Further than this, it may be added that the drugs used by these Professors of Infanticide, are, as a rule, unused by the Medical Faculty.