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We beg our fair countrywomen, those who would "walk in the knowledge and love of God," to scorn the propositions from whatever source they may come, to destroy the lives of their unborn children, and to imitate the example of the simple-minded but pious woman in our own practice, who replied to five eminent physicians, who assured her
that she must assent to the destruction of her baby, or die: "What! murder my poor bairn? No! God knows which life to take!" In so doing they may hope for the same reward which was vouchsafed to her, a living child, and robust health to nurture and work for it.
Again we assert^ that science can no more decree the death of a being in the womb than out of the womb; that she must limit herself to the discharge of her whole duty in this view of the subject, and that in the vast majority of cases lives will be saved where they are now sacrificed; in other words, that were the rule here advocated enforced by the combined influence of the civil and medical codes, fewer maternal lives would perish, and a far greater number of infantile lives would be saved than under the present outrageous and unnatural system, and also that the present toleration of "justifiable" infanticide, as implied in the expression "criminal abortion," opens the door for the most frequent and frightful abuses of the "privilege," by leaving the question of legality in particular instances, impossible to be determined. On the lowest view of the subject, namely, that thousands of lives are sacrificed under the plea of necessity where one "legal" necessity exists, the decrees of law and of science should be changed.
But what do we say ? By solemn decrees the largest body of Christians has declared and rigidly maintains that the detstruction of intra-uterine life, under any and all circum-
