psychically sterile, without being physically so, and who possess
nothing of motherhood but the ability to bring forth. These, when
they abort, are simply correcting a failure of Nature." Some of
them, she remarks, by going on to term, become guilty of the far
worse offence of infanticide. As for the women who desire
abortion merely from motives of vanity, or convenience, Oda
Olberg points out that the circles in which these motives rule
are quite able to limit their children without having to resort
to abortion. She concludes that society must protect the young
life in every way, by social hygiene, by laws for the protection
of the workers, by spreading a new morality on the basis of the
laws of heredity. But we need no law to protect the young
creature against its own mother, for a thousand natural forces
are urging the mother to protect her own child, and we may be
sure that she will not disobey these forces without very good
reasons. Camilla Jellinek, again (_Die Strafrechtsreform_, etc.,
Heidelberg, 1909), in a powerful and well-informed address before
the Associated German Frauenvereine, at Breslau, argues in the
same sense.

The lawyers very speedily came to the assistance of the women in
this matter, the more readily, no doubt, since the traditions of
the greatest and most influential body of law already pointed, on
one side at all events, in the same direction. It may, indeed, be
claimed that it was from the side of law--and in Italy, the
classic land of legal reform--that this new movement first begun.
In 1888, Balestrini published, at Turin, his _Aborto,
Infanticidio ed Esposizione d'Infante_, in which he argued that
the penalty should be removed from abortion. It was a very able
and learned book, inspired by large ideas and a humanitarian
spirit, but though its importance is now recognized, it cannot be
said that it attracted much attention on publication.

It is especially in Germany that, during recent years, lawyers
have followed women reformers, by advocating, more or less
completely, the abolition of the punishment for abortion. So
distinguished an authority as Von Liszt, in a private letter to
Camilla Jellinek (op. cit.), states that he regards the
punishment of abortion as "very doubtful," though he considers
its complete abolition impracticable; he