Obstetric morality : being a reply to an article in No. LXXXVII of the Dublin Review / by Fleetwood Churchill.

  • Churchill, Fleetwood, 1808-1878.
Date:
1858
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Obstetric morality : being a reply to an article in No. LXXXVII of the Dublin Review / by Fleetwood Churchill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sonal feelings, and simply confine myself to the question in debate, and I shall endeavour so to treat the subject as to give no offence to those who may differ from me. In a mixed ques¬ tion like the present, it is perhaps improbable that all should agree, but in differing, it is surely possible that each may give the other credit for the highest motives, and respect him for his conscientious adherence to what he thinks right. The question at issue—the morality or immorality of de¬ stroying a living child by craniotomy—has always been re¬ garded in a threefold aspect, moral, theological, and obstetrical, the latter resting on and inseparably connected with the former, at least in the opinion of one party; so that, although this is not the place for a moral or theological dissertation, nor I the most competent person to undertake it, yet it is impossible to avoid the subject entirely. I shall, however, confine myself to a short statement and examination of the arguments: with this advantage, that the reviewer, having based his theological reasons upon Holy Scripture, an authority to which I impli¬ citly bow, we have, so far, common ground. I. In the first place, the reviewer objects to the destruction of an unborn babe on the grounds that it is a breach of the sixth commandment, “ Thou shalt do no murderand also that it is contrary to the denunciation in Genesis, ix. 6:— “ Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man.” If the latter text be more than authorization of capital punishment for murder, which I do not deny, it is clear that it must be subject to li¬ mitation, otherwise it would prohibit killing in self-defence, or in defence of another, which is considered lawful by the Roman Catholic Church, and it would render war unlawful. If, then, it be thus modified, there is no reason why the limi¬ tation may not be extended so as to include the operation in question, provided I can show that it cannot justly be consi¬ dered a breach of the sixth commandment. What, then, constitutes murder., and in what does it essen¬ tially differ from killing or homicide f For our present purpose we shall derive the best assistance from the law of the land, which is the highest practical exponent of the law of morals. I am indebted to a distinguished legal friend for the following definitions:—“ Murder, then, is the killing any person under the king’s peace with malice prepense, or aforethought, either ex¬ press or implied by lawso say Lord Coke, Sir Matthew Hale, Sergeant Hawkins, &c. “ Of this description, the malice prepense, malitia precogitata, is the chief characteristic, the