Abortion (Lat. abortus, a miscarriage), the premature expulsion of the foetus or embryo, at so early a period that it is incapable of living, and the pregnancy is consequently unfruitful. In the human species, a child may often continue to live and be reared if born as early as the seventh month of pregnancy; and these accordingly are said to be cases of "premature birth." Nevertheless, if a child born after the seventh month and before the natural term of parturition should at once die in consequence of such premature birth, this would also be a case of abortion. In the earlier and i middle periods of pregnancy, the death of the | foetus sometimes takes place from internal causes, and it is soon afterward discharged from the uterus, to which it has become a source of irritation. Thus, whether the foetus die in consequence of premature delivery, or whether the premature delivery be a consequence of the death of the foetus, all such cases are generally included under the term abortion. Abortion is sometimes produced, by various means, with the criminal intent of getting rid of the product of conception, and thus preventing the birth of a living child. All such means are dangerous to the mother, and may readily lead to a fatal* result.

The production of abortion for this purpose is therefore doubly criminal, since its first object is the destruction of the life of the foetus or child; and this object is furthermore accomplished at the risk of death to the mother. - The legal and medical sciences are not quite in accord upon the matter. The increasing frequency of this practice of abortion in the most enlightened communities at the present day has attracted to it the particular attention of physicians; and they urge that the evil cannot be suppressed without the enactment of laws not only more severe but of a ditferent character from those which have hitherto existed. They insist that, as the first and most essential step in the course of a reform of the law, the legislature must not only abandon the old idea that the quickening of the child is the commencement of its life, but must proceed directly upon the fact, especially emphasized by modern medical science, that the life of the future human being begins at the very instant of conception; that not only therefore must the old criteria of criminality which depended upon quickening be abandoned, but the protection of the foetal life must be the direct object of the law, no less than the protection of the life or well-being of the mother, or the general conservation of public morality and decency.

It will be seen on an examination of the later statutes that a substantial advance toward these positions has been made by legislation during the last 20 years. - For the purpose of an intelligent view of the existing law, and in anticipation of still further legislation, some facts upon the physical side of the subject may be well kept in mind. The foetus cannot be properly regarded at any period of its existence as merely pars viscerum matris, as the phrase is; that is to say, as an essential constituent part of the mother. The ovum does not originate in the uterus, but after impregnation is lodged there, being totally disconnected from the organism of the mother during the transition; and it is attached to the uterus for the simple purposes of shelter and nutrition. The human form is developed and is visible in the foetus even before the period of its quickening. This term quickening is the name given to those phenomena of different sorts by which action in the foetus is manifested to the mother.

This mere incident of progressive development appears at no absolutely certain time, but usually between the 115th and 180th days after conception. Viability of the foetus does not depend necessarily on its age, though it is usually not viable, or capable of living, before the lapse of seven months after conception; yet it may be at undeterminable periods before that time. - Though the legal offences relating to abortion depend almost entirely upon positive statutes, yet it, is sometimes material to determine whether an act of this character is criminal at common law, as the phrase is; or, in other words, by the general, customary, and unwritten law. It is said by some of the best writers that there can be no doubt that at common law the wrongful destruction of an unborn child was a high misdemeanor, and that at an early period in England it was deemed murder. There are no reported cases confirming this view, but two passages of Brac-ton and Fleta ought not to be overlooked. Though they are in some respects of obscure meaning, yet they are noteworthy, not only as being the earliest declarations on the subject contained in English law books, but because the rules they lay down are so far advanced beyond those of the English law even of to-day. Both books were written in Latin, the former in the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272), the latter in that of Edward I. (1272-1307). Bracton says: "If any one shall have given blows or drugs to a pregnant woman, in consequence of which she shall have aborted, if the child were already formed and animate, and especially if animate, he is guilty of homicide.'1 The author of Fleta says: "Whoever shall have done vio-lence to a pregnant woman, or shall have given her drugs or blows so as to produce an abortion, or to prevent conception (ut nori conci-piat), if the foetus was already formed and animate, is a homicide; and likewise, whoever shall have given or taken drugs with the intent to prevent generation or conception (con-ceptio). So, too, the woman is guilty of a homicide who has destroyed her animate child in her womb, by potions or things of that sort." These passages, it will be noticed, pronounce the mother's destruction of her unborn quick child a homicide.

The present law of England declares that any woman being with child, and whether quick or not is indifferent, who uses drugs or any other means to procure her miscarriage, is guilty of a felony, and is punishable by imprisonment only. 'Coke, who lived in the 16th century, says in his third Institute that "if a woman be quick with child, and by a potion or otherwise killeth it in her womb, or if a man beat her whereby the child dieth in her body and she is delivered of a dead child, this is a great misprision and no murder." In this passage occurs the reference to the quickening of the child, which has always down to a very recent period been made an essential element in the degree of criminality in English acts relating to abortion. With reference to the common law on the subject, it has been held in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Jersey, that it is not, apart from statutes, an indictable offence to use means upon a pregnant woman, with her consent, for the purpose and with the effect of procuring an abortion, unless the mother were quick with child.