ABORTION. The expulsion of the feetu at a period of utero-gestation so early that i has not acquired the power of sustaining ai independent life.
Its natural and innooent causes are to be sough either in the mother—as in a nervous, irritable tem perament, disease, malformation of the pelvis, im moderate venereal indulgence, a habit of miscar riage, plethora, great debility ; or 1:46 the feetue or it dependencies ; and this is usually disease in the ovum, in the membranes, the placenta, or du fetus itself.
The criminal means of producing abortion are of two kinds. General, or those which seek to produc the expulsion through the constitution of the mother which are venesection, emetics, cathartics, diuretics emmeoagogues, comprising mercury, Ravine, am the secale cornatain (spurred rye, ergot), to wide' muoh importance has been attached; or local or chanical means, which oonsiet either of external vio lence applied to the abdomen or loins, or of inetru ments introduced into the uterus for the purpose rupturing the membranes and thus bringing or premature action of the womb. The latter is thi more generally resorted to, as being the most effec tual. These local or mechanical means not unfre• quently produce the death of the mother, as well a: that of the foetus.
At common law, an attempt .to destioy child en venire sa mere, appears to have been held in England to be a misdemeanor. Ro• coe, Crim. Ev. 4th Lond. ed. 260 ; 1 Russell, Crimes, 3d Loud. ed. 671. In this country, it has been held that it is not an indictable of. fence, 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, remature birth of the foetus of which she is pregnant, by means of which an abortion is In fact caused, without averring and proving that, at the time of the administration of such drug or the performance of such operation, such woman was quick with child. 9 Mete.
Mass. 263 ; 2 Zabr. N. J. 52. But in Penney]. vania a contrary doctrine has been held. 13 Penn. St. 631.
The former English statutes on this subject, the 43 Geo. III. c. 58, and 9 Geo. IV. c. 51, 14, distinguished between the case where the woman was quick .and was not quick with child ; and under both acts the woman must have been pregnant at the time. 1 Mood. Cr. Cas. 21.6; 3 Carr. & P. 605. The terms of the recent act are, " with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman," omitting the words "being then quick with child," &c. ; and it is immaterial whether the woman is or is not pregnant, if the prisoner, believing her to he so, administers the drug, or uses the in strument, with the intent of producing abor tion. 1 Den. Cr. Cas. 18 ; 2 Carr. & K. 293.
When, in consequence of the means used to secure an abortion, the death of the woman ensues, the crime is murder. And if a person, intending to procure ,abortion, does an act which causes a child to be born so =oh earlier than the natural time that it is horn in a state much less capable of living, and afterwards dies in consequence of its expo sure to the external world, the person who by this misconduct so brings the child into the world, and puts it thereby in a situation in which it cannot live, is guilty of murder; and the mere existence of a possibility that some thing might have been done to prevent the death will not render it less murder. 2 Carr. & K. 784.
Consult 1 Beck, Med. Jur. 288-331, 429 435 ; Roscoe, Crim. Ev. 190 ; 1 Russell, Crimes, 3d Lond. ed. 671; 1 Briand, hied. Leg. pt. 1, c. 4; Alison, Scotch Crim. Law, 628.