The wretched woman, having stooped to such an unnatural sin, feels a deep remorse, and no verdict of her own can ever acquit her of guilt. The subsequent history of the woman will be a sad one. She will probably never be entirely well again. Her menstrual periods will be attended with an undue loss of blood and with acute suffering. She will probably suffer with incontinence of urine, with continual "spotting" of blood for weeks at a time, and perhaps from a tumor within the womb either a "polyp" or a "fibroid tumor". If she ever desires to become pregnant again and bear a child, she is likely to be either sterile or to lose the products of conception by an abortion or miscarriage; for one of these calamities prediposes to another, and so on in increasing ratio.
In a spontaneous or natural abortion, on the other hand, the results are not often so serious, and where there has been skilled medical attendance it is practically devoid of danger. Even after a criminal abortion, if the woman were to apply for efficient medical treatment at once, the results would not often be so serious, though, as a rule, the dirty instruments which have been used upon her have done irreparable mischief. No place could be more favorable for the growth of septic organisms than the warm, moist cavity of the uterus, rendered especially vascular and succulent by the pregnancy.
Of course the operation of criminal abortion, however skilfully it might be done even by a trained surgeon, means for the foetus death and murder, and, as it is almost invariably practised, it means for the woman the ruin of her health and character, and the jeopardy of her life.
The man who got her into this trouble and then abandoned her, cutting loose from all the promptings of conscience, is, of course, a partner with her in guilt and responsibility, and all the oceans of the world cannot cleanse him from blood guiltiness. Any argument whatsoever which might be brought forward for its being sometimes necessary and expedient may be answered by the reply that "the wages of sin is death".
Our sympathy for the seduced woman, under a cloud of shame and with a mind bordering on insanity, is great; but for the man who drives her to this guilt and danger, it is well that a merciful God is the judge.
"Very often, indeed, the results of a criminal abortion are immediately fatal from a variety of causes, and the medical and lay press teems with the reports of such cases; and yet the women continue to allow themselves to be practised upon with reckless abandon by these unscrupulous vultures, who are permitted by the apathy of the law to advertise themselves and to exist in every community. Of course the women who seek relief from pregnancy abhor these fiendish abortionists, and rarely apply to them until they have been refused assistance in their wicked work by some reputable physician.
The position of physicians is indeed unique; no other class of men are urged to commit murder as they are, but these temptations, which are presented to every doctor, should be put aside without exception. No argument which the woman may offer to save her from disgrace, no appeal to his sympathies, no fee which might excite his avarice, should lead him to commit this crime against human and divine law. "Heart's blood weighs too heavily".
"Every man who undertakes the practice of medicine is met upon the threshold of his career by what I do not hesitate to pronounce one of the most powerful, baneful, damning combinations of temptations that can possibly assail the human heart. All that is good, all that is evil within him is subjected to the utmost pressure that can be brought to bear by the combined influences of pity, sympathy, and sometimes greed. Youth and beauty on bended knee, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, implores help with more devoted earnestness of purpose, with more burning reality of feeling, than that with which it approaches the throne of grace".