542 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



The Charge Disputed.— It will be urged that these 

 early destructions are not murders. Murder is an 

 awful word. The act itself is a terrible crime. No 

 wonder that its personal application should be studi- 

 ously avoided ; the human being who would not shrink 

 from such a charge would be unworthy of the name of 

 human— a very brute. Nevertheless, it is necessary to 

 look the plain facts squarely in the face, and shrink 

 not from the decision of an enlightened conscience. 

 We quote the following portions of an extract which 

 we give in full elsewhere; it is from the same distin- 

 guished authority * so frequently quoted : 



"There is, in fact, no moment after conception 

 when it can be said that the child has not life, and the 

 crime of destroying human life is as heinous and as 

 sure before the period of 'quickening' has been at- 

 tained, as afterward. But you still defend your hor- 

 rible deed by saying: 'Well, if there be, as you say, 

 this mere animal life, equivalent at the most to simple 

 vitality, there is no mind, no soul, destroyed, and there- 

 fore there is no crime committed.' Just so surely as 

 one would destroy and root out of existence all the 

 fowls in the world by destroying all the eggs in exist- 

 ence, so certain is it that you do by your act destroy 

 the animal man in the egg, and the soul which animates 

 it. . . . Murder is always sinful, and murder is the wilful 

 destruction of a human being at any period of its ex- 

 istence, from its earliest germinal embryo to its final, 

 simple, animal existence in aged decrepitude and com- 

 plete mental imbecility." 



Difficulties.— Married people will exclaim, ''What 

 shall we do?" Delicate mothers who have already 

 more children on their hands than they can care for, 

 whose health is insufficient to lonsrer endure the pains 



* Gardner 



