The private spiritual and hygienic directions which are given in the "confessionals" by men who are usually intelligent and saintly are undoubtedly of great value to certain classes of people who are incapable of judging rightly for themselves.
"It is not, of course, intended to imply that Protestantism, as such, in any way encourages, or indeed permits, the practice of inducing abortion; its tenets are uncompromisingly hostile to all crime. So great, however, is the popular ignorance regarding this offence that an abstract morality is here comparatively powerless; and there can bo no doubt that the Bomish ordinance, flanked on the one hand by the confessional, and by denouncement and excommunication on the other, has saved to the world thousands of infant lives".
And again let us quote from the report of the Special Committee on Criminal Abortion:
"It is well known that in this country the faithful ministrations of the Catholic clergy prevent the commission of the crime to such an extent that it is very seldom committed by a Catholic married woman, and the committee believes that if the Protestant clergy would properly present the subject to their congregations, with the assistance of the press and other auxiliaries, the crime would soon become as rare among the Protestant as the Catholic women.
But the clergy claimed to be ignorant on this subject.
They must therefore be instructed and urged on to their duties by agitating it through the press and in assemblies like this and others of which we have spoken. The press needs educating almost as much as the clergy before it can place the subject in an intelligent manner before its readers".
The daily press is largely responsible for the increasing frequency of this crime by permitting the obscene advertisements of charlatans and abortionists to appear, disgustingly aiding in the work of criminal malpractice and being most efficient accessories in this abhorrent iniquity of foeticide.
It is the price of blood. If the daily papers would consent to give up the fees received for advertising this class of work in their "personal columns", they could do more to abolish it than all other agencies combined, and if they will not voluntarily do so the responsibility will then rest on the legislatures which fail to enact laws to prevent the public press from printing suggestive advertisements.
These avaricious abortionists, ignorant pretenders, and unprincipled impostors roam over the country from village to town, putting up their signs, and freely using the daily papers and the mails to allure the ignorant and the wicked and the perverted ones of the community to their ruin.
So badly does Lombroso, the great European criminologist, think of the moral laxity of our laws that, with perfect truth, he says:
"Another occasional offence, specifically local, is abortion in the United States, where it is so diffused that public opinion has ceased to condemn it. In proof, we have the advertisements of doctors and female midwives who practise chiefly in this branch and recommend their establishments in newspapers and on posters".
It is greatly to be desired that Congress shall create an additional office for a cabinet minister, who shall be the director of a national bureau of health.
We have cabinet officers to advance the interests of agriculture, the postal service, and our internal and external policies, but no national influence is at work for the betterment of our nation's health except the power to establish quarantine.
It is true that each of our States represents a sovereignty and that each State is jealous of these rights; but, nevertheless, a cabinet officer of health could disseminate knowledge and bring about much needed reforms.
It is high time, indeed, that the law should awake to the necessity of appointing censors or supervisors over the public press; for if left to itself there is every reason to believe that it will continue, for the sake of the blood money, to aid and abet the traffic in human life by admitting to its columns the advertisements of abortionists, baby farmers, procurers and brothels. If the reader is not aware of the truth of this, it is simply because he has failed to inform himself; and for ready proof he is referred to the daily papers of our large cities.