Criminal Abortions

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CRIMINAL ABORTIONS.

We have been requested by a medical friend to call attention to an article which appears in the current number of the Buffalo Medical Journal, under the above caption. The subject is a delicate one for a family paper to allude to, much less discuss; yet if the allegations of the Journal are true—and our friend assures us that his practice and that of every member of the profession furnishes evidence of their truth—then assuredly no mock delicacy or prudery should be suffered to stand between error and crime, and their needful exposure. No one doubts the propriety of medical journals treating on such a subject; but if the evil is so wide spread as is stated, the medical press, unaided by the newspaper world at large, cannot remove it. It is the family newspaper alone, which reaches the class whose moral sense needs to be awakened on the subject—and therefore it is the general newspaper which must grapple with the evil and strive to overthrow it.

The Journal asserts that the daily, and even the religious press, insert advertisements of professed abortionists; of pills which “are sure to procure abortion,” from which “miscarriage will certainly ensue,” &c. That in consequence of the continual and unchecked publicity afforded to this class of announcements, females have “come to regard abortion as one of the most innocent and natural things in the world”—so that it is no uncommon thing for medical attendants to be as coolly and unconcernedly asked to produce abortion as a dentist would be requested to draw a tooth. Nay, it is asserted, and advertisements are extracted from popular journals to prove the fact, that instruments are openly announced, and largely used, which are warranted to “regulate or limit offspring, without injuring the constitution.” Still further, the Journal does not hesitate to assert that neither the poor, the abandoned, or the ignorant, patronize these infernal inventions so much as the “educated and refined” ladies of fashion and social position.

We cannot but regard the extensive publicity given to advertisements of the class we have referred to, as a conclusive proof that the crime which they facilitate is of frequent commission. No article is largely advertised, for which there is not a large demand—for it is the extent of the demand which warrants the seller in producing his goods and placing them before the public. If then abortion is thus practised—extensively and with hardly the thinnest veil of disguise—it would ill become the conductors of the press, who claim to be the guardians of public morals, to conceal the fact, as to squeamishly hesitate in denouncing this class of advertisers as atrocious scoundrels, and any publisher who inserts their advertisements as particeps criminis.

Both in law and common sense, Infanticide is regarded as Murder, and it needs little knowledge of physiology to be aware that Abortion is but a form of Infanticide. Unless our boasted civilization is to sink to the level of Chinese barbarism, our women, of every class and degree, must be convinced that to deprive their inchoate offspring of life is to commit Murder, and that under circumstances of aggravation which make the foulest of crimes more atrocious.