ABORTION, is the expulsion of the ft:ems, at a peri od of gestation so early, that it is impossible for it to survive. The precise age at which a child may live in dependent of its uterine appendages, is not exactly de termined ; but all practitioners agree, that, before the seventh month, there is little chance of preserving the infant. Between the seventh month, and the usual time of parturition, the woman is not said to miscarry, but to have a premature labour.
In every state, whether savage or civilized, attempts have, from various motives, been made to procure abortion. These are dangerous in proportion to the violence of the means employ ed, and the difficulty with which the ovum separates from the uterus. It is a ftet which cannot be too generally known, that such medi cines as destroy the child, or cause a miscarriage, pro duce a very dangerous effect on the system of the mo ther, and sometimes prove fatal to her life. That such attempts are highly criminal, no one can doubt who considers the subject ; but, unfortunately, a prejudice prevails with the ignorant, that until the period of quickening, the child is not alive ; and that, conse quently, it is not reprehensible to remove it. There is, however, no bet more clearly proved than this, that the foetus is alive, and gives decided marks of its vitality, long before its motion can be felt by the mother. Our laws, notwithstanding, seem to be framed on the vulgar belief; for, in Scotland, it is declared to be a capital crime to procure a miscarriage after the child is quick , but there is no statute against destroying it before tha': period, and the attempt, at most, can only receit e an arbitrary punishment. By an act of the British par liament, passed so lately as the year 1803, this distinc tion is explicitly made ; for it is expressly said, that the procuring of abortion, before the child be quick, shall be punished with imprisonment or transportation ; boa if the child have quickened, the person shall be hang ed. There is the authority of Ilale, for saying, that, in England, this principle was at one time even pushed farther,; for the plea of pregnancy did not stop the exe cution of a criminal, if she had not reached the period of quickening. In Scotland, this barbarous rule never obtained ground ; for pregnancy, at any stage, has al ways been admitted as a bar to execution. In France,
the crime of procuring abortion was formerly capital ; hut since the Revolution, the punishment is twenty years' imprisonment. In every civilized it is decreed, that, if a woman die, in consequence of taking medicines to cause abortion, the person who admin istered them shall be held guilty of murder.
In some countries, abortion, so far from being pro hibited, is encouraged. in the island of Formosa, we are told that no woman is allowed to carry a child to the full time, till she arrives at the age of thirty-five years. The American Indians, likewise, permit at tempts to procure abortion ; and the Africans, in or der to conceal an illicit connexion, sometimes use an infusion of a species of grass to destroy the foetus. In Guiana, a different plant is used for the same purpose. In the West Indies, the Negroes sometimes make similar attempts ; though, from promiscuous inter course, and other causes, abortion frequently happens without any effort on the part of the mother.
However criminal this practice may be, it is far less so than the custom of some other countries, where the child is allowed to come to the full time, but is suf f)cated whenever it is born. Such is the case in the South Sea Islands. In China, new born children are exposed on the streets, or thrown into the water, with out compunction. Other savages, still more barbarous, inter the living child with the dead mother, when the happens to die soon after delivery. For the considera tion of the causes, prevention, and treatment of abor tion, see the article MIDWIFERY ; and see also Dr Hamilton's Chambon, Mala dies des Femmes. V igarous, Maladies des •eninzes,tom.
ii. p. 3o2. Petit, Maladies, E..tc. tom. i. p. 245. Den UMW'S infrOditc/R/ii, chap. 15. Hoffman, (../: ra, tom.
iii. p. 176. Baudelocque, Sec. part iv. c. ii. art. 3. ,slaw iccau's Traitl, lays i. coup. 24. La Moue, ii. ( hap. 15. Roedeeer Iar nuns,§ 71. 1)elcurgc 'fewer, 9 520. Pun, Piaciques p. 87. Plunk, Ale/mac/a, p. Luvret, &c. p. 423. SIIICIlie, b. i. c. .3. 7. Leak's Diseases of• 11'8nen, vol. i. p. 140. Piozo's Truitt', p. 190. stahi,in Haller's Disp. Med. t. iv. 1.'0 dere, Traite de Medicine Legali,t. ii. p. 13. and Burn's Observations on ..dbc•tion. (i)