It is not, therefore, surprising that abortion is exceedingly common in all civilized and progressive countries.  It cannot, indeed, unfortunately, be said that abortion has been conducted in accordance with eugenic considerations, nor has it often been so much as advocated from the eugenic standpoint.  But in numerous classes of cases of undesired pregnancy, occurring in women of character and energy, not accustomed to submit tamely to conditions they may not have sought, and in any case consider undesirable, abortion is frequently resorted to.  It is usual to regard the United States as a land in which the practice especially flourishes, and certainly a land in which the ideal of chastity for unmarried women, of freedom for married women, of independence for all, is actively followed cannot fail to be favorable to the practice of abortion.  But the way in which the prevalence of abortion is proclaimed in the United States is probably in large part due to the honesty of the Americans in setting forth, and endeavoring to correct, what, rightly or wrongly, they regard as social defects, and may not indicate any real pre-eminence in the practice.  Comparative statistics are difficult, and it is certainly true that abortion is extremely common in England, in France, and in Germany.  It is probable that any national differences may be accounted for by differences in general social habits and ideals.  Thus in Germany, where considerable sexual freedom is permitted to unmarried women and married women are very domesticated, abortion may be less frequent than in France where purity is stringently demanded from the young girl, while the married woman demands freedom for work and for pleasure.  But such national differences, if they exist, are tending to be levelled down, and charges of criminal abortion are constantly becoming more common in Germany; though this increase, again, may be merely due to greater zeal in pursuing the offence.

Brouardel (op. cit., p. 39) quotes the opinion that, in New York, only one in every thousand abortions is discovered.  Dr. J.F.  Scott (The Sexual Instinct, Ch.  VIII), who is himself strongly opposed to the practice, considers that in America, the custom of procuring abortion has to-day reached “such vast proportions as to be almost beyond belief,” while “countless thousands” of cases are never reported.  “It has increased so rapidly in our day and generation,” Scott states, “that it has created surprise and alarm in the minds of all conscientious persons who are informed of the extent to which it is carried.” (The assumption that those who approve of abortion are necessarily not “conscientious persons” is, as we shall see, mistaken.) The change has taken place since 1840.  The Michigan Special Committee on Criminal Abortion reported in 1881 that, from correspondence with nearly one hundred physicians, it appeared that there came to the knowledge of the profession seventeen abortions to every one hundred