ty on this subject,
so ignorant are the greater number of individuals, that even mothers, in
many instances, shrink not from the commission of this crime, but will
voluntarily destroy their own progeny, in violation of every natural
sentiment and in opposition to the laws of God and man. Perhaps there
are few individuals in extensive practice who have not had frequent
applications made to them by the fathers and mothers of unborn infants
(respectable and polite in their general appearance and manners) to
destroy the fruit of illicit pleasure, under the vain hope of preserving
their reputation by this unnatural and guilty sacrifice.

"Married women, also, from the fear of labor, from indisposition to have
the care, the expense, or the trouble of children, or some other motive
equally trifling and degrading, have solicited that the embryo should be
destroyed by their medical attendant. And when such individuals are
informed of the nature of the transaction, there is an expression of
real or pretended surprise that any one should deem that act improper,
much more guilty; nay, in spite even of the solemn warnings of the
physician, they will resort to the debased and murderous charlatan, who,
for a piece of silver, will annihilate the life of the foetus, and
endanger even that of its ignorant or guilty mother.

"This low estimate of the importance of foetal life is by no means
restricted to the ignorant or to the lower classes of society. Educated,
refined, and fashionable women, yea, in many instances, women whose
lives are in other respects without reproach--mothers who are devoted
with an ardent and self-denying affection to the children who already
constitute the family--are perfectly indifferent concerning the foetus
_in utero_. They seem not to realize that the being within them is
indeed _animate_, that it is in verity a _human_ being, body and spirit;
that it is of importance; that its value is inestimable, having
reference to this world and the next. Hence they in every way neglect
its interests. They eat and drink, they walk and ride; they will
practise no self-restraint, but will indulge every caprice, every
passion, utterly regardless of the unseen, unloved embryo....

"These facts are horrible, but they are too frequent and too true;
often, very often, must all the eloquence and all the authority of the
practitioner be employed; often he must as it were grasp the conscience
of his weak and erring patient, and