st her will, I
am of opinion that artificial abortion should be allowed by law as an
exceptional measure. We cannot expect a woman to have a child imposed
upon her by a man's violence, especially when she is unmarried, and
oblige her to bring it up, from the simple fact that she conceived it.
It should be the same in cases of abduction of female minors.

When, on the contrary, a male minor seduced by an adult woman, makes
her pregnant, it is the woman only who is responsible for the
maintenance of her child, and there are no reasons to accord her the
right of abortion, for it is she who desired the sexual act. The close
bonds which exist between the child and its mother justify such legal
dispositions.

With regard to civil laws, we have mentioned the case of venereal
infection after coitus. In this case civil indemnity would be most
equitable. A penal action could only be based on prosecution by the
injured party, unless it was a question of directly criminal
intent--infection for vengeance, for example.

=Incest.=--Under the heading of _consanguineous marriages_, we have
seen to what extent the conception of incest should be limited, in
respect to civil law. The grave cases of incest are those between
parents and children. Their normal causes are mental anomalies,
alcoholism, proletarian promiscuity, or isolation of a family in some
remote place. Incest is common, in Switzerland especially, among the
inhabitants of isolated mountain chalets. I will give a few typical
and genuine examples of incest giving rise to penal actions:

(1). A drunken and brutal husband persecuted his wife with excessive
coitus. The latter then gave him her own daughter to satisfy his
violence.

(2). An inebriate woman induced her own son, aged seventeen, to have
intercourse with her. Infuriated at the idea that his mother had made
him her lover, he murdered her one day when he was drunk. Condemned as
a parricide, this young man conducted himself in prison in a model
manner. Alcohol, combined with his incestuous seduction, had made him
the murderer of his mother.

(3). In a family composed exclusively of imbeciles and psychopaths,
some of whom were put under my care for treatment, incest was
practiced among nearly all of them; between father and daughters;
between mother and sons; and between brothers and sisters.

The last case, and many others, show that incest is not the cause but
the effect of mental disorders. This does not mean