VIII.—Recapitulation.
VIII.—Recapitulation.
We have now seen that the induction of a forced abortion is, in reality, a crime against the infant, its mother, the family circle, and society; that it is attended with extreme danger, whether immediate or remote, to the mother's happiness, to her health, mental and physical, and to her life; that there is, in reality, no valid excuse for it that can be urged, save when it has been decided to be an absolute necessity by two competent medical men, and that there are alternatives, such as greater temperance and frugality of living, which, if practised, would be equally for the public and for private good.
We have also seen that not only is abortion wrong, no matter from what quarter we contemplate the act, but so also is the deliberate prevention of pregnancy in the married alike detrimental to the health and to the moral sense. Moderation and temperance here, as elsewhere, afford the golden rule. Under the circumstances to which I allude, total abstinence may, as far as the health is concerned, be as injurious as is the other extreme of excessive indulgence. To the woman in good bodily condition, occasional child-bearing is an important means of healthful self-preservation; to the invalid, an intentional miscarriage is no means of cure; if she be in poor health, let her seek aid and relief in the proper quarter, but not, by thus tampering with natural and physiological laws, alike imperilling both body and soul.
Were woman intended as a mere plaything, or for the gratification of her own or her husband's desires, there would have been need for her of neither uterus nor ovaries, nor would the prevention of their being used for their clearly legitimate purpose have been attended by such tremendous penalties as is in reality the case.
We have seen that in a perverted and mistaken public opinion lies the secret of the whole matter. "Ladies boast to each other of the impunity with which they have aborted, as they do of their expenditures, of their dress, of their success in society. There is a fashion in this, as in all other female customs, good and bad. The wretch whose account with the Almighty is heaviest with guilt, too often becomes a heroine. So truly is this the case, that the woman who dares at the present day, publicly or privately, to acknowledge it the holiest duty of her sex to bring forth living children, 'that first, highest, and in earlier times almost universal lot,'[21]is worthy, and should receive, the highest admiration and praise."[22]
We have seen that it is no trifling matter, this awful waste of human life. It is a subject that demands the best efforts of the whole medical profession, both as a body and as men, whose every relation its members are alike best able to appreciate, to understand, and to advise concerning. "Physicians alone," says Prof. Hodge, "can rectify public opinion; they alone can present the subject in such a manner that legislators can exercise their powers aright in the preparation of suitable laws; that moralists and theologians can be furnished with facts to enforce the truth upon the moral sense of the community, so that not only may the crime of infanticide be abolished, but criminal abortion properly reprehended; and that women in every rank and condition of life may be made sensible of the value of the fœtus, and of the high responsibility which rests upon its parents."[23]
"If the community were made to understand and to feel that marriage, where the parties shrink from its highest responsibilities, is nothing less than legalized prostitution, many would shrink from their present public confession of cowardly, selfish, and sinful lust. If they were taught, by the speech and daily practice of their medical attendants, that a value attaches to the unborn child, hardly increased by the accident of its birth, they also would be persuaded or compelled to a similar belief in its sanctity, and to a commensurate respect."[24]
We have seen that the above is the deliberate decision of those who, from their observation and knowledge of the subject, are best able to judge. "Whatever estimate may attach to our opinion," says an eminent medical journalist, "we believe that not only ought these things not so to be, but that the public should know it from good authority. For ourselves, we have no fear that the truth, in reference to the crime of procuring abortion, would do aught but good. It wouldappear that sheer ignorance, in many honest people, is the spring of the horrible intra-uterine murder which exists among us; why not, then, enlighten this ignorance? It would be far more effectually done by some bold and manly appeal than by the scattered influence of honorable practitioners alone. Will not the mischief, by and by, be all the more deadly for delaying exposure and attempting relief?"[25]
We have also seen that "it might be, it very likely would be, for our immediate pecuniary interest, as a profession, to preserve silence; for we have shown that abortions, of all causes, tend to break down and ruin the health of the community at large. But to harbor this thought, even for a moment, were dishonorable."[26]
This subject, at all times so important for the consideration of the people at large, is invested with unusual interest at a period like the present, when, at the close of a long and closely contested war, greater fields for human development and success are opened than ever before. All the fruitfulness of the present generation, tasked to its utmost, can hardly fill the gaps in our population that have of late been made by disease and the sword, while the great territories of the far West, just opening to civilization, and the fertile savannas of the South, now disinthralled and first made habitable by freemen, offer homes for countless millions yet unborn. Shall they be filled by our own children or by those of aliens? This is a question that our own women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.
In the hope that the present appeal may do somewhat to stem the tide of fashion and depraved public opinion; that it may tend to persuade our women that forced abortions are alike unchristian, immoral, and physically detrimental; that it may dissipate the ignorance concerning the existence of fœtal life that so extensively prevails, and be the means of promoting the ratio of increase of our national population, so unnaturally kept down, the National Medical Association addresses itself to all American mothers; for thus, in the closing words of the Essay from which I have so frequently and so freely drawn, would "the profession again be true to its mighty and responsible office of shutting the great gates of human death."