ault of a hopeless,
merciless, scandalmongering, mischievous, and evil-minded society,
ever on the watch to crush an unmarried mother by every means in its
power!

"But--even after such treatment at the hands of society, the
persecuted mother can rise up again. It often happens that these
girls, after one false step of the sort, are led by that very fact to
develop their best and noblest qualities. Let the court inquire of the
superintendents at refuge homes, where unmarried mothers and their
children are received, if this is not the case. And experience has
shown that it is just such girls who have--whom society has forced to
kill their own children, that make the best nurses. Surely that was a
matter for any and all to think seriously about?

"Then there is another side of the question. Why is the man to go
free? The mother found guilty of infanticide is thrust into prison and
tortured, but the father, the seducer, he is never touched. Yet being
as he is the cause of the child's existence, he is a party to the
crime; his share in it, indeed, is greater than the mother's; had it
not been for him, there would have been no crime. Then why should he
be acquitted? Because the laws are made by men. There is the answer.
The enormity of such man-made laws cries of itself to Heaven for
intervention. And there can be no help for us women till we are
allowed a say in the elections, and in the making of laws, ourselves.

"But," said Fru Heyerdahl, "if this is the terrible fate that is meted
out to the guilty--or, let us say, the more clearly guilty--unmarried
mother who has killed her child, what of the innocent one who is
merely suspected of the crime, and has not committed it? What
reparation does society offer to her? None at all! I can testify that
I know the girl here accused; have known her since she was a child;
she has been in my service, and her father is my husband's assistant.
We women venture to think and feel directly in opposition to men's
accusations and persecution; we dare to have our own opinion. The girl
there has been arrested, deprived of her liberty, on suspicion of
having in the first place concealed the birth of a child, and further
of having killed the child so born. I have no doubt in my own mind
that she is not guilty of either--the court will itself arrive at this
self-evident conclusion. Concealment of birth--the child was born in
the middle of the day. True, the mother is alone at the time--but wh