Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

What we are at present endeavoring to make clear is, the great distinction and difference between coition and fecundation or conception; while one is but the result of the natural instinct aroused by the senses, the other reaches out into the realm of the Creator. When man undertakes to destroy the product of conception, he has interfered with the prerogative of God and is guilty of murder.

The question may now naturally arise in the minds of pure and morally-disposed persons, whether there is any time, without doing violence to God’s law, that the children of men have the moral right to control, or regulate, the procreation of the human race? If I answer the question in the affirmative, I will then proceed to inquire into the ways and means to that end, and also into the pernicious methods that are employed, to accomplish this result.

It is true, that the Divine command was to be fruitful and multiply, but before this command was given, man was a free agent and a reasoning being, which implies that he is after all to be the judge as to the degree in which this command is to be carried out. That is, that there are mitigating and qualifying circumstances, which man has not only a right to consider, but which he is expected to take into account in propagating the species, by virtue of his reasoning faculties.

If this command were absolute and universal, chaste celibacy would be a cardinal sin, yet it has always been held by the canons of spiritual growth and morality, to be a Divine virtue, and even the loving Jesus knew not woman, because the forces that are thus expended will exert their power in other directions and towards developing powers of a higher order.

I believe that a moral code, which is too exacting to be observed by the average person, fails to accomplish the restraint or reform that is desired, so that, after all, it becomes essential to lay down such rules as the average men or women can follow as guides for their actions. A reformer, who starts out with the broad declaration that it is immoral to take human life, and a murderous act to destroy a half-formed human being in its mother’s womb, and that it is equally murderous to prevent the recent products of the sexual act from becoming a viable being, fails to make the impression he desires. The first half of the proposition neutralizes the second of its sacred essence, in placing on the same level the organic function of conception and the animal function of the sexual act.

This view is so manifestly absurd to the person of even ordinary perception, that I feel assured, that it would neither lessen feticide nor sexual excess.

Spermatozoa on the one hand, and the ova of the female on the other, are, even in the natural and uninterrupted course of nature, destined for destruction, for whenever the female menstruates, these ova are discharged, and whenever the male copulates, hundreds of spermatozoa are found swimming in the spermatic fluid, which in case there be no ripened ovum are nothing more than so much waste secretion. Both are a means to an end, and that end is the reproduction of the species. It appears to me a flight of fancy, from the sublime to the ridiculous, to assign to the sexual act the same importance as to the passive function of conception, and I believe that doctrines of this nature lack not only the least scientific support, but weaken any argument in favor of the moral or spiritual aspect, which alone raises the question of feticide from a social evil to a mortal sin.

Man is prompted by a powerful instinctive desire for the use of the sexual organs, that draws him involuntarily to the opposite sex, not for the continuance of the race, because the passion arises much oftener without the remotest thoughts of any fruitful results. I have the greatest regard for the life of the unborn child, yet I am far from agreeing with those who would stamp as libidinous every thought of the sexual instinct, that has not as its stimulus the procreation of the species. While the average man is in the flesh, he is an animal man, and there is no use of trying to make a spiritual saint out of flesh and blood, and when we do find that, we have a very exceptional and remarkable person. But what, as reasonable beings, we should do, is to bridle the animal passions with moral reins, so that we can stand up, in full-statured manhood, with the respectful approval of our own conscience, able to rise above the mere animal appetites, to the dignity of reasonable beings. This instinct, like other propensities, is excited by sensations, and these may originate either in the sexual organs themselves, or may be excited through the organs of special sense. In man the passion is most powerfully aroused by impressions conveyed through the sight or the touch. It often happens that localized sensations will excite the sexual desire of either sex, so that many cases of excessive sexual desire can be traced to some local disease of the genital apparatus: chief among the numerous causes that may be cited, is pruritus or local itch, erythema and active congestion of the womb and ovaries.

“This tendency cannot be regarded,” says Dr. Carpenter, “as a simple passion or emotion, since it is the result of the combined operations of the reason, the imagination, and the moral feelings: it is in this engraftment of the physical or spiritual attachment upon the more corporeal instinct, that a difference exists between the sexual relations of man and those of the lower animals. In proportion as the human being makes the temporary gratification of the mere sexual appetites his chief object, and overlooks the happiness arising from spiritual communion, which is not only purer but more permanent, and of which a renewal may be anticipated in another world,—does he degrade himself to a level with the brutes that perish. Yet how lamentably frequent is this degradation.” This quotation gives the entire physical and spiritual aspect of the question, by one of the most eminent physiologists of our time, so that in the natural course of our investigation we are led to inquire into the currents of thought, which would tend towards developing moral restraint.