The English law makes no distinction between a woman "quick" or "not quick", with child. Therein it is better, as will presently appear.
"Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument, or other means whatsoever,
with the like intent; and whosoever, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she be or be not with child, shall unlawfully administer to her, or cause to be taken by her, any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully use any instrument, or other means whatsoever, with the like intent, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be kept in penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than five years, or to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor, and with or without solitary confinement".
In an editorial appearing in a prominent medical journal the punishments accorded to the crime in the various countries of the civilized world aro thus summed up.
"In England and Ireland the punishment is penal servitude for life, or a less term.
Should the mother die, the crime becomes murder, which may be punished by death. In Scotland (says Lancet), the punishment is arbitrary; in France, Spain, the German Empire, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Eussia, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in short, throughout the whole of Europe the crime is punished with imprisonment for from six months to twenty years, or for life.
In Sweden the penalty is death if the mother dies; and in Russia the mother, if a consenting party, may be exiled to Siberia; in the Dominion of Canada the penalty is imprisonment for life; in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and in Prince Edward Island it varies from imprisonment for two years to for life; in New Brunswick the penalty is death;
in Australia and New Zealand the punishment is very severe, ranging from two years imprisonment to penal servitude for life; in the United States it is punished with fines ranging from $100 to $5,000, with imprisonment for long periods, and with death".
Significance of the Term "Quickening". In the United States many of the States still lay stress in their statutory laws on the objectionable term "quick", though this disastrous word has been intelligently stricken out from the laws of many of our commonwealths, and it will doubtless soon be universally recognized by the legal profession that this requirement of "quickening" is of no moment whatever in fixing the degree of the crime of procuring abortion.
Had the popular views regarding "quickening" and embryology been correct, it is certain that millions of lives, some undoubtedly of priceless potential value to society, would have been saved. At the date of this occurrence the foetus is first felt to be alive by the mother, though of course it has been hitherto steadily developing and making active movements, which, however, have been too feeble to make themselves apparent.
Let us here quote from the report of the committee appointed by the New York Medico-Legal Society in 1872 James J. O'Dea, M.D. (Chairman), Elbridge T. Gerry, George F. Shrady, M.D., William Shrady, Stephen Eogers, M.D., Judge Gunning S. Bedford, committee:
"At length Christianity came to measure swords with the growing evil" i.e., in the first century. For a time the contest was warm. A society corrupted by ill gotten wealth and sensual gratification would not surrender such convenient doctrine without a determined resistance. The battle waxed fierce, but the already assured triumph of the purifying faith was postponed by a compromise (how originated or by whom proposed does not appear) no less disastrous than the pagan theory it supplanted.