It is interesting, and at the same time of judicial importance to
ascertain, so far as possible, the standing and character of the
perpetrators of this crime.
In the first place, French statistics on the large scale show that the
number of criminals, principals and accomplices, in that country at
least, is in large excess to the instances of the crime, there having
been in 183 trials, from 1826 to 1853, not merely 417 parties accused,
but 213 convicted; and that in 75 per cent. of the prosecutions and
convictions occurring, where the abortion is not induced by the mother
herself, the offenders are women.[130] With us the same statement is,
without doubt, equally true.
The part played by the mother, herself so often a victim, is almost
always that of a principal, yet as laws now stand, she can scarcely ever
be reached. The cases where she is under duress, by threat of other
personal violence from her husband or seducer, and thus compelled to
submit to abortion, or where the act is performed by his direction but
without her knowledge, are so rare, that in a general statement they
may be assumed not to exist. If the mother does not herself induce the
abortion, she seeks it, or aids it, or consents to it, and is, therefore,
whether ever seeming justified or not, fully accountable as a principal.
We have already seen the position these mothers hold in the community,
high as well as low, rich as well as poor, intelligent and educated as
well as ignorant, professedly religious as well as of easy belief, not
single alone, but married.
We turn now to their partners in guilt, more criminal than themselves;
for whatever excuse the latter may suppose themselves to possess, the
former can have none.
The accomplices in criminal abortion are of several classes,
distinguishable in some respects from each other, especially by the
relative frequency with which their part is played. They are:
Of women, I.—Friends and acquaintance.
II.—Nurses.
III.—Midwives and female physicians.
Of men, IV.—Husbands.
V.—Quacks and professed abortionists.
VI.—Druggists.
VII.—And worst of all, though fortunately extremely
rare, physicians in regular standing.
In many cases, such at least is judged by the writer from his own
observation, the abortion is not merely advised, but induced by some
female _friend_, especially by one who has herself undergone, in her own
person, the crime; perhaps without appreciable evil result,—but this
is not necessarily the case, for even where such result is present and
plainly in consequence, its connection with the true cause is frequently
unsuspected or disbelieved.
It has been said that misery loves companionship; this is nowhere
more manifest than in the histories of criminal abortion. In more
than one instance, from my own experience, has a lady of acknowledged
respectability, who had herself suffered abortion, induced it upon
several of her friends, thus perhaps endeavoring to persuade an uneasy
conscience that by making an act common, it becomes right. Such 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 true is 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,”[131] is worthy, and should receive,
the highest admiration and praise.
The ease with which an accomplice is procured, provided the idea
originates with the victim herself, and is not suggested by another,
is found among _nurses_ to be greatly increased. We separate them
as a class from midwives and female physicians, with whom, though in
this country not generally acknowledged or thought identical, they not
unfrequently aim to be confounded. They are usually, and rightly, thought
more familiar with the laws of health and disease, than the generality
of their sex; they are, if doing their duty in his sight, seen to be
treated with respect by the physician; they are commonly of mature age,
supposed discreet, wise, and to keep their own counsel; they have had
opportunities of gaining the confidence of the mother; many of them
have themselves borne families. They are therefore approached with less
hesitation, and are not always found proof against an offered fee.
What we have said of nurses applies with increased pertinency to _female
physicians_ and _midwives_. These make it their claim, in rivalry of
the male physician, that their schools and their practice are, like
his, founded on those abroad, especially of Paris. Tardieu shows, in
a total of 32 cases occurring in that city and collected by himself,
that in 21—no less than 66 per cent., or two-thirds of the whole
number reported—the crime was perpetrated by midwives.[132] This class
frequently cause abortion openly and without disguise. They claim a
right to use instruments, and to decide on the necessity and consequent
justifiability of any operation they may perform. Where they establish
private hospitals, professedly for lying-in women or not, their chances,
previously great, of committing this crime and infanticide with impunity,
become more than doubled. It has been found necessary in France for the
police to exercise rigid surveillance over these establishments. In one
instance, occurring at Grenoble, it was proved that within three years
there had happened in the house thirty-one still-births at the full time,
or deaths just after birth, and that the abortions and miscarriages had
been almost innumerable.[133] In another case, to conceal the evidence
of these truly _corpora delicti_, and to evade the law against secret
burials, the midwife had established an understanding and a current
account with an undertaker, who was accustomed to smuggle her fœtuses
into his coffins, by the side of the corpses confided to him for burial.
In still other cases, the victims are kept on hand, preserved in jars;
private collections vieing in extent with those of legalized obstetric
museums.
By these remarks we would not be supposed endeavoring to excite prejudice
against female physicians and midwives, as such, or advocating their
suppression. We are now merely considering this crime of abortion, in
relation to which they are peculiarly and unfortunately situated. At
present everything favors their committing the crime; their relations to
women at large, their immunities in practice, the profit of this trade,
the difficulty, especially from the fact that they are women, of insuring
their conviction. Let better laws be enforced, and let public opinion be
enlightened concerning the guilt of abortion, and the influence for evil
of this class of offenders will in great measure be done away with.
Of male abortionists we have less to say. Their number is fewer abroad,
bearing the proportion, as we have seen, of but one to every four,
and their liability of being applied to, or consulted, is slight in
comparison.
_Husbands_, though generally knowing to the offence of their wives,
and often counselling it, probably but seldom attempt its commission
themselves; yet instances of this do undoubtedly occur. In but a
sixteenth of the cases reported by Tardieu, was any compulsory violence
exerted over women by their husbands.
_Druggists_ and _professed abortionists_ are accountable for the greater
number of the cases of the crime attributable to men. The latter class,
though proportionally rare, yet abound in every city, and take all means
of making themselves known. A knowledge of their alleged specifics,
against the use of which, “at certain times,” the public are “earnestly
cautioned,” etc. etc., is brought home to all our women, no matter how
purely minded, and despite every care to the contrary, through the medium
of the daily press; few papers, however professedly respectable or
religious, proving able to refuse the bribe.
Druggists, as a class, are little more than the confessed agents of these
villains. Even should they not directly recommend their nostrums, as,
however, is frequently the case, they almost universally keep them on
sale, labelled to catch the eye, and placarded on their walls. Like the
publishers and vendors of obscene literature, they conceive they are not
to blame for supplying a public demand, however much they themselves may
have done toward its creation.
And in this connection we must again allude to the guilt of the public
press, which has proved itself so constantly and so dangerously an
accessory to the crime. It would be thought that in Massachusetts, for
instance, a statute like the following might do something to check this
license:[134]
“Every person who shall knowingly advertise, print, publish, distribute,
or circulate, or knowingly cause to be advertised, printed, published,
distributed, or circulated, any pamphlet, printed paper, book, newspaper,
notice, advertisement, or reference, containing words or language, giving
or conveying any notice, hint, or reference to any person, or to the name
of any person, real or fictitious, from whom, or to any place, house,
shop, or office where any poison, drug, mixture, preparation, medicine
or noxious thing, or any instrument or means whatever, or any advice,
directions, information, or knowledge, may be obtained for the purpose of
causing or procuring the miscarriage of any woman pregnant with child,
shall be punished,” etc. etc.[135]
The above statute, however, such is the public sentiment on this point,
is not enforced, or is daily evaded. The press, if it choose, may almost
annihilate the crime; it now openly encourages it.
It has been often alleged, and oftener supposed, that _physicians in
good standing_ not unfrequently and without lawful justification, induce
criminal abortion. This statement, whatever exceptional cases may exist,
is wickedly false. The pledge against abortion, to the observance of
which Hippocrates compelled his followers by oath,[136] has ever been
considered binding, even more strongly of late centuries. The crime is
recognized as such in almost every code of medical ethics; its known
commission has always been followed by ignominious expulsion from medical
fellowships and fraternity. If this direct penalty be at any time
escaped, it is only through lack of decisive proof, bare suspicion even
of the crime insuring an actual sundering of all existing professional
friendships and ties; a loss that subsequent proof of innocence could
hardly restore. Such is the unanimous feeling of the profession; to its
credit be it said, that with but a single exception,[137] and this to his
eternal disgrace, its writers are all agreed, abstractly considering the
subject, on the sanctity of fœtal life. The instances where physicians
in good standing are guilty of the crime, are of rare occurrence; the
error that has prevailed on this point, originating from the self-assumed
titles of notorious quacks and knaves. But no condemnation can be too
strong for the physician who has thus forgotten his honor; who has
used to destroy life, that sacred knowledge by which he was pledged to
preserve it.
The criminal abuses likely to arise from the procurement of justifiable
abortion by medical men, are so numerous, their own liability to be
thought by the public criminally careless of fœtal life, or skeptical
concerning its existence, is so great, that the subject is worthy special
consideration. This I shall now devote to it.