struggling with
the reckless lack of prevision. The necessity for abortion is precisely
one of those results of reckless action which civilization tends to
diminish. While we may admit that in a sounder state of civilization a few
cases might still occur when the induction of abortion would be desirable,
it seems probable that the number of such cases will decrease rather than
increase. In order to do away with the need for abortion, and to
counteract the propaganda in its favor, our main reliance must be placed,
on the one hand, on increased foresight in the determination of conception
and increased knowledge of the means for preventing conception,[444] and
on the other hand, on a better provision by the State for the care of
pregnant women, married and unmarried alike, and a practical recognition
of the qualified mother's claim on society.[445] There can be little doubt
that, in many a charge of criminal abortion, the real offence lies at the
door of those who have failed to exercise their social and professional
duty of making known the more natural and harmless methods for preventing
conception, or else by their social attitude have made the pregnant
woman's position intolerable. By active social reform in these two
directions, the new movement in favor of abortion may be kept in check,
and it may even be found that by stimulating such reform that movement has
been beneficial.

We have seen that the deliberate restraint of conception has become a part
of our civilized morality, and that the practice and theory of facultative
abortion has gained a footing among us. There remains a third and yet more
radical method of controlling procreation, the method of preventing the
possibility of procreation altogether by the performance of castration or
other slighter operation having a like inhibitory effect on reproduction.
The other two methods only effect a single act of union or its results,
but castration affects all subsequent acts of sexual union and usually
destroys the procreative power permanently.

Castration for various social and other purposes is an ancient and
widespread practice, carried out on men and on animals. There has,
however, been on the whole a certain prejudice against it when applied to
men. Many peoples have attached a very sacred value to the integrity of
the sexual organs. Among some primitive peoples the removal of these
organs has been regarded as a peculiarly ferocious insult, only to be
carri