That a multiplicity of children in poverty-stricken families often impels to abortion, is evident. The necessary evils of our prohibitive laws and ethics bearing upon illegitimacy, are obvious; viz:
First, and worst, is infanticide, committed usually before, but only too often after birth. In the latter category I would place abandoned children who die of exposure or starvation, and the bulk of mortalities in foundling asylums and for baby farms. The social ostracism placed upon the mother is a prime factor in this child’s murder. Condemnation and shame are hers if she allows nature to take its course, and the penalty of infanticide stares her in the face if she interferes with the conception. A rarely anomalous state of affairs this.
Second—The brand of infamy placed upon the unborn child, from which only its murder can save it.
Third—The prostitution or suicide of the woman who is found out.
Branded with ignominy from the moment of conception, a burden to society, and a still greater burden to its parent, or parents from the moment of its birth, with no systematic endeavor on the part of society to prevent its growing up a criminal, a drunkard, a pauper, a prostitute, or a physical wreck, what wonder that many a poor woman’s fingers become too tightly entwined around her offspring’s neck. If her motive for the act were always as altruistic as its consequences, so far as the child’s welfare is concerned, there are some clear-minded thinkers in the world who could not be brought to judge her harshly. P. 371.
The rights of the unborn will one day be considered. Until they are so considered, and practical efforts made to secure them, we cannot hope for much improvement in the prevention of degeneracy. P. 559.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF DISEASES OF CHILDREN, November 1914. Vol. 8, pp. 327–335. Question of Hereditary syphilis as a social problem.
Of all deaths of infants in St. Louis in 1913, 1,070 were illegitimate.
Of all deaths in infants due to syphilis 1,550 were illegitimate.
AUGUST FOREL. The Sexual Question. A Scientific, Psychological, Hygienic and Sociological Study. Translated by C. F. Marshall, M.D., F.R.C.S., Late Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. London.