thinks abortion might be
permitted during the early months of pregnancy, thus bringing
about a return of the old view. Hans Gross states his opinion
(_Archiv fuer Kriminal-Anthropologie_, Bd. XII, p. 345) that the
time is not far distant when abortion will no longer be punished.
Radbruch and Von Lilienthal speak in the same sense. Weinberg has
advocated a change in the law (_Mutterschutz_, 1905, Heft 8),
and Kurt Hiller (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909), also from
the legal side, argues that abortion should only be punishable
when effected by a married woman, without the knowledge and
consent of her husband.

The medical profession, which took the first step in modern times in the
authorization of abortion, has not at present taken any further step. It
has been content to lay down the principle that when the interests of the
mother are opposed to those of the foetus, it is the latter which must be
sacrificed. It has hesitated to take the further step of placing abortion
on the eugenic basis, and of claiming the right to insist on abortion
whenever the medical and hygienic interests of society demand such a step.
This attitude is perfectly intelligible. Medicine has in the past been
chiefly identified with the saving of lives, even of worthless and worse
than worthless lives; "Keep everything alive! Keep everything alive!"
nervously cried Sir James Paget. Medicine has confined itself to the
humble task of attempting to cure evils, and is only to-day beginning to
undertake the larger and nobler task of preventing them.

"The step from killing the child in the womb to murdering a
person when out of the womb, is a dangerously narrow one," sagely
remarks a recent medical author, probably speaking for many
others, who somehow succeed in blinding themselves to the fact
that this "dangerously narrow step" has been taken by mankind,
only too freely, for thousands of years past, long before
abortion was known in the world.

Here and there, however, medical authors of repute have advocated
the further extension of abortion, with precautions, and under
proper supervision, as an aid to eugenic progress. Thus,
Professor Max Flesch (_Die Neue Generation_, April, 1909) is in
favor of a change in the law permitting abortion (provided it is
carried out by the physician) in special cases, as when the
mother's pregnancy has been due to fo