THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 169 
The means resorted to in order to avoid the responsibility 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 whicb 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 modern 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 
