CRIMINAL ABORTION. 
WILLIAM McCOLLOM, M.D. 
BROOKLYN,'N. Y. 
REPRINTED FROM THE 
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 
FEBRUARY S, 1S96. 
CHICAGO: 
American Medical Association Press. 
1890. CRIMINAL ABORTION. 
C*ffABLI')fc McCOLLOM, M.D. 
1 use the words in their legal sense, viz, the effect- 
ing of the unlawful expulsion of the contents of the 
womb at any time after conception before the term of 
gestation is complete. The very old English law made 
a distinction between the crime perpetrated before and 
after quickening. The rulings of the supreme court 
of several of the American States corresponded with 
the old English law which was abolished a half 
century, more or less, ago. The Pennsylvania court 
was one of the first to discard the old doctrine and 
the courts of many of the other States have progress- 
ively fallen into line, and have ruled that it is a 
crime to destroy embryo life after gestation has 
begun. Judge Coulter, of Pennsylvania, ruled that 
“it is not the murder of a living child which consti- 
tutes the offence, but the destruction of gestation.” 
An attempt by a physician or other person to procure 
an abortion is a crime, though the effort fail and the 
abortion is not produced, and it renders the party crim- 
inally guilty. When a physician prescribes medicine 
or gives advice and allows the patient or party to be- 
lieve, or gives her reason for believing that it is given 
for the destruction of ejfibryo life, though he does not 
intend such destruction's little better than a crim- 
inal. I have heard physicians confess to such decep- 
tion without seeming to realize that they were 
seriously compromising honesty and integrity and 
countenancing sin and crime. 
Criminal abortion is frightfully prevalent and the 
practice is apparently on the increase among pro- 
fessed Christian women. It should be and it is the 2 
duty of the physician to enlighten applicants for re- 
lief from pregnancy who have no adequate idea of the 
criminality of the act. The women of the Church of 
Rome are better instructed and made to keenly feel 
the great sin of murdering unborn human life. I 
might raise the question whether the clergy are doing 
their duty in the matter or not, but I am addressing 
medical men only. Let us do our duty, if our spiritual 
advisers neglect to do theirs, in denouncing this 
common crime and great sin. It is evident that 
women of the lower class have no adequate idea of 
the criminality of the act, for they unblushingly 
apply to the physician and to the druggist for medi- 
cine to abort pregnancy, or, in other words, to bring 
about the monthly sickness. Great ignorance of the 
criminality of the practice is manifested by educated 
women, but it is not ignorance alone but a down- 
right lack of moral sense as well, which greatly needs 
educating. The common law at the present day 
does not make the destruction of an unborn child mur- 
der. I quote Blackstone on English law: “Though 
to kill the fetus in utero is as such by common 
law no murder, yet if it be born alive and die sub- 
sequently to birth from wounds received in the 
womb, or from the means used to expel it, the of- 
fence becomes murder in those who cause or employ 
them.” I also quote from another distinguished 
jurist, Wharton, “ Law of Homicide,” 93 : “If a per- 
son intending to procure an abortion, does an act 
which causes the child to be born earlier than its 
natural time, and therefore in a state much less 
capable of living and it afterward die in consequence 
of such premature exposure, the person who by this 
misconduct brings the child into the world, and puts 
it into a situation in which it can not live, is guilty 
of murder, though no direct injury to the child is 
proved; and the mere existence of a possibility that 
something might have been done to prevent death, 
does not lessen the crime.” We are inclined to the 
belief that such law is not good common sense; to 3 
kill the child in utero according to Blackstone is 
not murder or infanticide, but to inflict such injury 
upon it that though it is born alive and dies in 
consequence of the injury it is murder. 
Some years ago I attended a woman, the wife of 
an attorney-at-law, seven months or more advanced 
in pregnancy, the child stillborn; the brain had been 
punctured through the eye from some instrument; this 
was not technically murder under common law, but 
I bluntly charged the mother with murder in the 
presence of her husband and friends, pointing out the 
evidence of it, and there was no denial. I have re- 
peatedly been shocked at the manifest lack of moral 
sense in intelligent women in applying for medicine 
to reestablish the menstrual function when it was 
evident that they believed the absence of the menses 
due to pregnancy. The woman sometimes attempts 
to justify the act because she does not positively 
know that conception has taken place. The physi- 
cian’s excuse for giving noxious drugs or for sound- 
ing the womb when miscarriage results that he did 
not know that the suppression was due to pregnancy 
renders him not less criminally liable. 
Under the older English law for an attempt to 
procure a criminal abortion without proof of the 
woman’s pregnancy conviction could not take place. 
More recent rulings as well as amended laws now 
make the attempt to procure a miscarriage a crime. 
It has been the law of France for more than fifty 
years, that the proof of pregnancy is not essential to 
the commission of the crime. We try to excuse 
Christian women for asking us to terminate preg- 
nancy on the ground of ignorance of the law of man, 
if not of the law of God. If they took as much pains 
to become enlightened in the common law regarding 
it as they do to how it can be accomplished with or 
without aid from others they would not long remain 
in ignorance in the matter. Physicians long in 
general practice know that the practice of criminal 
abortion is common, and that it is not confined to 4 
the laity or to the quack and the pretender. Some- 
times the ordinary physician who may be a member 
of a regular medical society violates his duty; and 
the distinguished college professor without the fear 
of God or of sufficient fear of human law takes his 
large fee for the criminal act. I am not drawing on 
the imagination, but state what I know to be true. 
Such statement does not sound well, but this fearful 
immoral destructive practice can not be checked 
unless facts are stated and proclamation is made of 
this great evil. 
I have no belief that the practice is common among 
physicians who have a reputable standing with the 
profession in the neighborhoods where they are 
known. The moral status of physicians is high and 
I trust that we have no more black sheep than the 
other learned professions. As we go down the scale 
from the higher to the lower the evil grows greater, 
until the criminal abortionist, who maybe a graduate 
of a regular medical college, loses all shame and not 
only sends out his advertisements to the laity, but 
his cards at frequent intervals to reputable physi- 
cians as well. These villains would not continue to 
inform the medical profession at considerable expense 
to themselves year after year unless their business 
was helped by it. A little lower down in intelligence, 
if not in wickedness, comes the so-called midwife 
and the woman who prefixes doctor to her name, and 
poses as a dermatologist or specialist in disease of 
females ; they flourish in many localities. 
Now we come to the economical woman and her 
economical friend, with their skewers, steel knitting 
needles and other instruments of murder. Quite re- 
cently an intelligent, educated professed Christian 
woman whom I attended in a miscarriage in the 
fourth month of pregnancy, confessed without ex- 
pression of sorrow or remorse that she had effected 
the abortion with her own hand by pushing a knitting 
needle into the womb, following the instruction of 
another young woman who had repeatedly succeeded 5 
in destroying embryo life in her own person and was 
Kindly instructing her young friends in the art with- 
out hope of pecuniary reward. It is only necessary 
for me to briefly call attention to the existing criminal 
facts, for all physicians who have had full opportu- 
nity to observe know that the alleged statements are 
true, and not overdawn; true of the city and true of 
the country. 
Much might be said of the far-reaching, demoraliz- 
ing destructive influence upon woman, upon the 
community, upon the State, upon the world; but the 
portraiture of the facts, bad as they would appear, I 
fear would have little influence in arresting the 
practice. The moral sense in woman, and possibly 
in the medical profession as well, has degenerated 
as regards this matter. The physician is so related to 
woman in his professional duties that he can do 
much, if he will, to instruct her as to the law and to 
show her that she would be a criminal, and shock 
her into a sense of her duty. It is presumed that 
few people know that the penal code of many of the 
States make the woman guilty of manslaughter if 
she consents to the procuring of a miscarriage. I 
quote from section 194, New York penal code: “A 
woman quick with child, who takes, or uses, or sub- 
mits to the use of any drug, medicine or substance, 
or any instrument or other means, with intent to 
procure her own miscarriage, unless the same is 
necessary to preserve her own life or that of the 
child whereof she is pregnant, if the death of such 
child is thereby produced, is guilty of manslaughter 
in the second degree.” 
When one woman advises another woman to pro- 
cure an abortion, instructs her as to the method or 
assists her in any way in its performance, she be- 
comes a criminal and is guilty of manslaughter. 
Section 191, Penal Code of New York, says: “A 
person who provides, supplies or administers to a 
woman, whether pregnant or not, or who prescribes 
for or advises or procures a woman to take any 6 
medicine, drug or substance, or who uses or employs, 
or causes to be used or employed, any instrument or 
other means, with intent to procure the miscarriage 
of a woman, unless the same is necessary to preserve 
her life, in case of the death of the woman or of any 
quick child of which she is pregnant is thereby pro- 
duced, is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree.” 
The field for missionary work is a large one and 
should be faithfully worked, both by the conscien- 
tious physician as well as by the Protestant Christian 
clergy, who perhaps fully understand the enormity 
of the sin if they do not know how prevalent it is. 
It is not a pleasant subject to discuss before a mixed 
audience. Young women could be reached, instructed 
and warned by a properly published circular or tract 
sent to them by Christian organizations at intervals, 
where personal instruction would not be practicable. 
There is little to criticise, as it relates to the laws of 
most of the older and some of the newer States of 
America. A recent ruling, June, 1895, by the supreme 
court of Kansas, rendering an important section of 
the Crimes Act as it relates to criminal abortion 
invalid, is a long step of about fifty years backward. 
The law provides that an attempt on the part of any 
one to abort “ any woman pregnant with a quick 
child” “shall be guilty of manslaughter in the second 
degree;” this is declared inoperative and invalid 
“where neither the death of the child nor the mother 
results from the acts committed.” The low moral 
sense of the community, as it relates to the offence, 
has much to do in the non-enforcement of the law. 
The criminal is seldom put under arrest unless the 
woman is murdered, and then the party, if convicted, 
frequently gets the minimum penalty prescribed by 
law. If physicians would do their duty and make 
complaint in all cases when it comes to their knowl- 
edge that physicians or other persons are violating 
the law in the destruction of unborn human life, it 
would do much to lessen the practice. I have more 
than once made written appeal accompanied with a 7 
threat that unless I could be satisfied that the prac- 
tice would stop, I would enter formal complaint to 
the legal authorities. Parties have responded, pleaded 
for mercy and given solemn promise never to again 
produce the miscarriage of a pregnant woman for any 
reason until they had held a consultation with a 
reputable physician, and its necessity was advised. 
It is not safe or best that any doctor procure the 
miscarriage of a woman in case of necessity until a 
consultation with another physician is had; such 
practice would protect himself against suspicion of 
wrong-doing, and materially help to trace and con- 
vict the criminal. So long as it is allowed the physi- 
cian to produce the miscarriage or the abortion of 
woman without consultation the evil will not be 
materially checked, for the criminal abortionist is a 
perjurer and when under trial in court will swear if 
necessary to avoid conviction, that the act was per- 
formed to prevent the death of the woman from 
disease, pelvic deformity, or for some reason given, 
satisfactory to the jury. It is very easy to speak 
upon this shocking criminality practiced by professed 
Protestant Christian men and women, as well as by 
the ungodly, and to moralize upon the destructive 
influence, especially upon woman, but it is difficult 
to solve the question when we ask, What is the rem- 
edy? How can it be checked?