Year: 1867

| themselves without resistance. till society is
threatened with utter corruption and decay
Such Is the fact now, with the crime of in
1artlcide before birth or, more accurately
| f@ticlde. So general and destructive has
the crime become as to cause reasonable
alarm, and at last the silence is broken and
the doctors of medicine and divinity unite in
solemn remonstrance and appeal against its
| guilt and danger. A most impressive article
on the subject appears in the Boston Con
gregatlonalist from the pen of Rev. Dr.
Todd, of Pittsfeld. DR.. Morse Stewart. an
influential physician of Detroit Michigan
has contributed to the Western Medical
Review paper discussing the physiological
effects of abortion, as to the mortal guilt
of the practice, and making startling dis
closures as to its prevalence and the immense
amount of disease and death resulting from
it.


DR.. Stewart declares that the statistics
confirmed by the observation of physicians,
prove that there is no crime more surely
punished in the persons of those committing 9
1t than that of abortion, and that more lives
are lost by it than by childbirth. OF those
who survive the operation, the majority are
made invalids for life by complication OF
incurabe disorders that break down the con.
stitution and often produce insanity. When
the attempt fails the child that escapes the
fate plotted for it and often the succeeding
children will be deformed idiotic or diseased
in various ways. The crime is never safe.
and when the evil consequences of the un-
natural act are apparently evaded at the
time, they are certain to be developed later
and to bring terrible retribution upon the
mother.


There is general concurrence in the opinion
that the practice of abortion has rapidly in.
creased within a few years, until it may be
said to be common. DR.. Stewart declares
that if every mother guilty of it should be
hung for murder. tie married women would
be almost decimated, for the criminals are
mostly married women. For the single
woman, deceived and betrayed, there would
seem to be some excuse in resorting to this
means to conceal her shame. The wife who
desires to escape the pain of childbirth and
the trouble of rearing offspring, and so
ruthlessly outrages her maternal instincts
and destroys her unborn children, cannot
satisfy her conscience with the selfish and
cowardly reasons which move her to the
unnatural crime. A New York physician
states that there are in that city over four
hundred professional abortionists most of





whom advertise in the leading papers,
These are establishments for the purpose
adapted to the different classes, some fitted
up luxuriously for the rich who pay as high
as $500 for the service. Beside the professed
abortionists, there are some regular ply
sicians who secretly assist their patients in
the commission of the crime at their own
homes, and hundreds of ignorant quacks,
men and women, to fall into whose hands is
almost certain death, and whose sole recon-
mendation is that they do their terrible work
quickly and cheaply. The specifics adver-
tsed in the metropolitan papers for causing
abortion are generally but bats and adver-
tisements of the practising abortionist, for
they almost invariably fail of their purpose,
while the directions accompany them point
to the establishments where the work may
be surely accomplished. In addition to
these systematic methods of procuring
abortion, the physicians are often called
upon to prescribe for women who have at
tempted the crime upon themselves, with
such crude means as were in their power,
and these are some of the worst cases in
their results of sickness and pain.


Abortion would seldom be practiced if it
were felt to be crime. There is prevail
ing notion that the life of human germ is
not sacred, and that it may be destroyed
without guilt at any moment before it
exhibits life or, indeed, at any moment pre-
vious to BIRTH DR.. Todd tells us that Cath
olic Christians are better instructed on this
subject than the Protestant. The confession
al guards human life from its first stage, and
fearful penalties are threatened against those
who interfere with its natural growth. The
Catholic bishop of Boston, says on this SUBJ
iects as follows:


The very instant conception has taken
place, there lies the vital germ of man.
True, it is hidden in the darkness of the
womb, and is helpless but it has sacred
rights, founded on Gods law and so much
the more to be respected because it is help
less. 1t may be already living man, for
neither mother nor physicians can tell when
life is infused. They can only tell when its
presence is manifested. There is wide
difference between the two things. At any
rate, it is from the first moment potentially
a man. with a body and soul destined most
surely by the will of the Creator and by His
law, to be developed into the fullness of
human existence No one can prevent that
DEVELOPMENT without resisting and annulling
one of the most sacred and important laws
established by the Divine Author of the
universe He is criminal and a murderer
who deals an exterminating blow to the in
cipient man, and drives back into nothing
ness being whom God designed to give
living body and an immortal soul.


Dr. Todd thinks it quite time that the
Protestant church, through its pastors and
teachers, should bear an equally decided
testimony against the crime. And there IS
more need of this if, as he asserts, the prac-
tice is far more common among Protestants
than Catholics. In this fact doubtless lies
the explanation in whole or in part, of the
decline of our Protestant population as com-
pared with the Catholic. 1t is not common
to find more than two or three children IN
our Protestant families Those who have
abundant means for the care and education
of children, are more likely to limit their
families by unnatural methods than their
poorer neighbors. Women in the higher
circles of society evade the duty of maternity
on the pretense that they are too delicate tor
it, and by that evasion often become help
less inyalids for life, while all observation
confirms the fact asserted by DIR. Todd.
r hon md