We believe that what we call "life" was not present during this observation, but that the muscles merely retained their contractility, as do those of the frog after they have been separated from all connection with the brain.
It is a complete demonstration, however, that the early foetus possesses a remarkable vitality, comparable to that commonly observed in the cold blooded animals, and the writer gives the assurance that it is an exceedingly difficult thing quickly to kill an early embryo; and furthermore, he believes that the younger the embryo the more tenacious of life it is; and that an embryo born even at the first or second month will continue to live, even under very unfavorable circumstances, for several hours, while others may survive, even though maimed by unsuccessful attempts at criminal abortion, and be subsequently born deformed.
Thus we see most plainly that life is present with wonderful activity, and with progressive evolutionary advances, and not stopping to discuss the trivial question when the soul meets the body, we are now in a position to proceed intelligently to the subject of criminal abortion.
Definitions. The definitions of the term "abortion" vary somewhat in different countries, and are not used in the same sense by the medical and legal professions, nor yet by all doctors or all lawyers.
By many doctors the term " abortion" is confined to the expulsion of the contents of the womb during the first three months of gestation i.e., before the placenta has fully formed; "miscarriage" is the term employed from the third month to the end of the sixth or seventh month, when the child is supposed to be viable; and "premature labor" is said to occur at any time after the child is viable to the end of the full time pregnancy.
Artificial divisions of time for defining abortion are used only for convenience; but all these are not without great imperfections, for Nature has no fixed rules of time and is not confined to hard lines of demarcation. It is no less difficult than to define "where lamb ends and mutton begins".
A child may or may not be viable before the expiration of seven months, and instances have been recorded where a child born considerably before the sixth month survived. Bouvier's "Law Dictionary" defines abortion to be the "expulsion of the foetus at a period of utero gestation so early that it has not acquired the power of sustaining an independent life". Storer defines abortion to be "the violent and premature expulsion of the product of conception, independent of its age, viability, and normal function".
The "Century Dictionary" says that the distinction between the terms abortion and miscarriage is somewhat useless, and that "criminal abortion is premeditated or intentional abortion procured, at any period of pregnancy, by artificial means, and solely for the purpose of preventing the birth of a living child foeticide. At common law the criminality depended on the abortion being caused after quickening. Some modern statutes provide otherwise".
The law requires that the procuring of abortion, in order to be criminal, must be with felonious intent, for it may be necessary as a therapeutic measure. Again, abortion has been legally defined thus:
"Any person who does any act calculated to prevent a child from being born alive is guilty of abortion. The intention constitutes the crime, not the means employed. The drugs may even be harmless".
Usually in law, the term abortion is applied to delivery at any time before the viability of the child, but it should be extended to the expulsion of the foetus at any time before the full period of gestation is completed. Bouvier's "Law Dictionary" again says:
"In this country [the United States] it has been held that it is not an indictable offence, at common law, to administer a drug or perform an operation upon a pregnant woman with her consent, with the intention and for the purpose of causing an abortion and premature birth of the foetus of which she is pregnant, by means of which an abortion is in fact caused, unless at the time of the administration of such drug or the performance of such an operation such woman was 'quick' with child".
Or, in plain language, it says that abortion is not an indictable offence unless the woman be "quick" with child.