Public opinion and the courts have for a long time seemingly contended that at this time the soul meets the body, but we know that the child is as much alive in one mouth as another, that its individuality dates from the time that the spermatozoon first impregnated the ovum, and that subsequently to its creation it was as much alive in the dim dawn of its existence as in maturity.
The foetus is quite able to employ its muscles at the tenth week; and "quickening" is frequently felt as early as that, though usually not until it is about four and a half months old. However, this sensation is sometimes not experienced till the sixth month, and sometimes not at all even when the child is ruddy and strong. The fact that "quickening" has never been felt does not at all imply that the f oetus is not perfectly well and healthy, though the phenomenon does occur in the large majority of pregnancies.
"Quickening" is merely an incident, and a trifling one, in the course of the pregnancy; it does not in any way indicate the union of "life" or the "soul" with the body, nor any new state in the existence of the foetus, but is merely an incidental perception by the mother of the very active manifestation of a pre existing life. Is it not most evidently absurd to suppose that the foetus is not endowed with life until the mother can feel its motions? What has it been doing all this time if it has not been growing and developing? Its muscles and the bones to which they are attached must, of necessity, have time to grow and develop before it can make movements of sufficient violence for the mother to detect.
As the reader sits in his chair perusing these pages he is not conscious that the blood in his arteries and veins is coursing through them endowed with vitality, and yet, because he cannot detect any sensation whatever, it is none the less vital.
Some advance the argument that the foetus, being dependent for its existence on its connections with the mother, has not a separate life, and that consequently it may be wilfully destroyed without incurring the guilt of murder. But are we not all of us dependent for our existence upon the media of our environments the atmosphere we breathe, the food and drink which nourish us, and the fire and raiment which give us warmth? Neither do we adults lead independent existences, and to deprive us of any one of these agencies upon which our lives hang would be murder.
The infant at its mother's breast is no less dependent upon her than the foetus which gets its nourishment through the umbilical cord and placenta. The plea that the child may be killed because it is dependent for its existence upon its mother is as applicable to the suckling as to the foetus. A pregnant woman is sacred and should so be regarded both by herself and others; her hallowed womb is the atelier of Nature, in which the child should be nourished safely, in perfect tranquillity, and undisturbed in its evolutionary stages by the faintest suspicion of a plot against its defenceless life.
How ineffectual and absurd is the law which requires that "quickening" must have been felt by the mother in order to establish an indictable offence! If the sensation were denied by the mother to be appreciable at the time of the deed, who is to gainsay the truth of the assertion? No one except the mother feels the first "quickening", and, especially as it is a painless sensation, she can deny its presence with impunity.
Historical. Let us shortly consider the execrable history of Criminal Abortion, and then inquire further into the frequency of the practice in our present life. It is a picture of human crimes and weaknesses a history of assassination a consideration of which may prevent the evil deeds from gaining an infamous acceptance by posterity.