The Causes of Abortion. Outside of the abortion habit, which may be due partly to heredity or be caused by a diseased condition of the lining membrane of the uterus, the principal cause of abortion and miscarriage is syphilis. And when a woman has had two or three or four or more miscarriages in succession we generally assume the cause to be syphilis, and in most cases the assumption will be correct.
When an abortion is performed by an experienced physician, with the observance of the utmost cleanliness (asepsis and antisepsis), then the abortion is accompanied with very little or no danger; but when performed carelessly, by incompetent, non-conscientious physicians and midwives, the operation is fraught with great danger to the patient's health or to her very life. And abortion is a great cause of premature death and chronic invalidism among women. And as long as the people will remain ignorant of the proper means of regulating their offspring, so long will abortion thrive.
While I recognize that there are cases in which the performance of an abortion is perfectly justifiable from a moral standpoint, for instance in cases of rape or where the mother is unmarried, nevertheless abortion must be recognized as an evil, a necessary evil now and then, but an evil, nevertheless. It is never to be undertaken lightly, or to be considered in a frivolous spirit; and it is the duty of all serious-minded and humanitarian men and women to do everything in their power to remove those conditions which make abortion necessary and unavoidable.
Chapter Seventeen[ToC]
PRENATAL CARE
Meaning of the Term—Misleading Information by Quasi-Scientists—Exaggerated Ideas Regarding Prenatal Care—Nervous Connection Between Mother and Child—Cases Under Author's Observation—Effects on Offspring—Advice to Pregnant Women—Germ-plasm of Chronic Alcoholic—A Glass of Wine and the Spermatozoa—False Statements—Cases of Violence and Accidents During Pregnancy.
By prenatal care we understand the care taken during pregnancy before the child is born. Used in a wider sense the term includes the care which both parents should take of themselves even before the child is conceived.