ll more so with the criminal code. Under this head belong the
various means for the prevention of pregnancy, or, when, despite all
care, this does set in, then the removal of the unripe
fruit--_abortion_. It were an error to claim that these measures are
resorted to only by heedless, unconscionable women. Often, rather, it is
conscientious women, who wish to limit the number of children, in order
to escape the dilemma of either having to deny themselves their
husbands, or of driving them to paths that they are naturally inclined
to. It often is such women who prefer to undergo the dangers of
abortion. Besides these, there are other women, especially in the higher
walks of life, who, in order to conceal a "slip," or out of aversion
for the inconveniences of pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing,
perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting
their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal
acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support.

To conclude from diverse indications, artificial abortion is coming ever
more into practice; nor is the practice new. Artificial abortion was in
frequent use among the ancient peoples, and is, to this day, from the
most civilized down to the barbarous. According to Jules Roget,[80] the
women of Rome took recourse to abortion for several reasons: They either
sought to destroy the evidence of illicit relations--a reason that even
to-day is often at its bottom; or they wished to be able to indulge
their excesses without interruption. There were also other reasons: they
wished to avoid the changes that pregnancy and child-birth work upon
woman's physique. Among the Romans, a woman was old from twenty-five
years to thirty. Accordingly, she sought to avoid all that might impair
her charms. In the Middle Ages, abortion was punishable with severe
bodily chastisement, often even with death; the free woman, guilty
thereof, became a serf. At present, abortion is especially in use in the
United States. In all large cities of the Union, there are institutions
in which girls and women are prematurely delivered: many American papers
contain the advertisements of such places: abortion is talked of there
almost as freely as of a regular birth. In Germany and Europe, opinion
on the subject is different: the German criminal code, for instance,
makes the act of both the principal and the accessory a penitentiary
offense.[81]

Abortion is,