THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 169 



The means resorted to in order to avoid the responsibihty of 

 parenthood vary in different households. The effective method 

 of continence in marriage naturally does not commend itself to 

 the rank and file of the human species. However much moralists 

 may condemn the employment of other means of preventing the 

 arrival of the unwanted child, most of those who regulate their 

 families will doubtless continue to follow prevalent customs. 

 The two methods of interfering with the natural course of repro- 

 duction are abortion and prevention of conception. The former 

 method, consisting as it does in the destruction of a life already 

 developing toward a human personality, is condemned in most 

 countries as essentially a form of murder. Procuring abortion, 

 either by the mother's own act or through the agency of another 

 person is commonly adjudged a criminal offense, and any physi- 

 cian or surgeon who is an accomplice in the crime is liable to more 

 or less severe penalties, unless the operation is one which the 

 safety or health of the mother demands. Notwithstanding all 

 the legislation against the traffic in child murder, there are very 

 few convictions on this score. The business flourishes in most 

 civilized countries under the patronage of the rich and influential 

 as well as the poor wage earners, who wish to avoid the burden of 

 large families, and the unfortunate girls who would avoid the 

 disgrace of unmarried motherhood. It is the general consensus of 

 opinion among writers on the subject that abortion is on the 

 increase, that it is more prevalent in the more civilized com- 

 munities, and more common in cities than in the country. What 

 primitive peoples effect through infanticide, the modem woman 

 accomplishes through recourse to the drug store or the gyneco- 

 logical expert. The thinly veiled advertisements of professional 

 abortionists are to be found in the papers of nearly every city. 

 There is reason to believe that in the United States and elsewhere, 

 conditions are becoming general such as Dr. Iseman has de- 

 scribed for New York. " So general is the demand and so common 

 the practice, that in the competition for the traffic the ordinary 

 criminal operator has been practically driven out of the business 

 by the highly skilled and respectable members of the medical 



