of expediency.

"In a chapter in which he deals with the exception created by necessity,
Lord Hale, quoted by Justice Coleridge, thus expresses himself:

"'If a man be desperately assaulted and in peril of death, and cannot
otherwise escape, except by killing an innocent person then present, the
act will not acquit him of the crime and punishment of murder; for he
ought rather to die himself than to kill an innocent.'

"In the case of two men on a plank at sea, which can only support one,
the right of one occupant to throw the other overboard to save his own
life, and in the instance of sailors, to save themselves, throwing
passengers in the sea, are equally condemned by Lord Coleridge as
unjustifiable homicide. So that under no circumstances is it allowable
to kill an innocent aggressor to save your own life. I say _innocent_
aggressor; but it is allowed, in self-defence, to kill, if necessary, an
_unjust_ aggressor against your life.

"This case is exactly analogous to that of the child lying helpless in
its mother's womb. She causes its death by her consent to the act of her
agent, the physician in attendance.

"Remark that Brookes, one of the sailors, dissented to the killing of
the sailor-boy. This may happen in consultation, when one of the
consultants does not admit the right to kill an unborn child. Please
also remember that the sailor-boy lay helpless at the bottom of the
boat when his assailants killed him to save their own lives.

"The child is not an unjust aggressor against the mother. It is placed
in the womb without its consent and is defenceless. It is the mother who
is, as it were, the aggressor from the obstacles caused by a deformed
pelvis, tumors, etc.; and she has not the right to ask or consent to the
killing of the child who does not attack her.

"Therefore, I repeat that the two cases are analogous; and if, as
remarked by Justice Coleridge, murder was committed in the first
instance, so is murder committed in the analogue. So, we see, the
principal points of the opinion enunciated by the learned judge, and the
principles therein laid down, can, with equal force, be applied to the
non-justification of craniotomy, by which the life of a defenceless
child is sacrificed to save the mother.

"Notice also that two of the perpetrators of the deed claimed that they
had families, and that their lives were more valuable than that of the
murdered boy. By craniotomists this reason or excuse is frequ