erent matter, and has nothing to do with cases where the
man is the pursuer or seducer and the woman an unwilling or reluctant
victim.

But whatever the relations between the man and the girl may be,
whether she yielded in a fit of passion, or was seduced by false
promises, by "moral" suasion, by hypnotic influence or by the vulgar
method of being made drunk, what is she to do if she finds herself, to
her horror, in a pregnant condition? There are two ways open to her:
either let the pregnancy go to term or to have an abortion brought on.

If she lets the pregnancy go to term she has the alternative of
bringing up the child herself openly or of placing it secretly in a
foundling asylum. In the first case, the necessity of publicly
acknowledging illegitimate motherhood requires so much moral courage
that not one woman in a thousand is equal to it. It is not moral
courage alone that is required; the social ostracism could be borne
with stoicism and even with equanimity, if with it were not frequently
associated the fear or the real danger of starvation. For under our
present system the illegitimate mother finds many avenues of activity
closed to her. A school teacher would lose her position instantly, and
so would a woman in any public position. It is feared that her example
might have a contaminating influence on the children or on her fellow
workers. Nor could she be a social worker--I know of more than one
woman who lost her position with social or philanthropic institutions
as soon as it was discovered that she did not live up strictly to the
conventional code of sex morality. Nor could she be a private
governess.

It is thus seen that to acknowledge one's self an illegitimate mother
requires so much courage, so much sacrifice, that very, very few
mothers are now found that are equal to the task. Especially so when
it is taken into consideration that the humiliations and indignities
to which the child is subjected and the later reproaches of the child
itself make the mother's life a veritable hell. So this alternative is
generally out of the question.

To give the child to a foundling asylum or to a "baby farm" means
generally to condemn it to a slow death--and not such a slow one,
either. For as statistics show about ninety to ninety-five per cent.
of all babies in those institutions die within a few months. And the
very few who survive and grow up have not a happy life. Life is hard
enough for anybody; for chil