Hector Treub

“ Treub, who values his knowledge devoted to the relief of suffering humanity above all else, it must doubtless be painful to see a patient, whose life he thinks he can save without fail, prefer death to the violation of a moral principle, which, however sacred to her, is not thoroughly appreciated by him, the doctor. ”

“ Right reason is indeed a true law, which agrees with nature, is to be found with all people, con- stant and perpetual, whose commands urge us to duty and whose prohibitions deter us from wrong. We may neither oppose nor alter this law nor tres- pass against it, nor can it be altogether repealed. Neither the Senate nor the people 'can free us from that law. Nor is that law different at Rome from what it is at Athens, now such and later otherwise, but one, ever- lasting, unchangeable, this law rules all nations at all times, and the one God is the common Master and Commander. ”

“ It is a crime against nature, which obstructs the fountains of life, and, therefore, it is punished. The next error assigned is that it ought to have been charged in the count that the woman had become quick. But, although it has been so held in Massa- chusetts, and in some other States, it is not, I apprehend, the law in Pennsylvania, and never ought to have been the law anywhere. It is not the murder of a living child which constitutes the offense, but the destruction of gestation by wicked means and against nature. ”

“ According to that system, punishable design is the intention of doing a deed punishable by the Penal Code, or " the conscious bent of the will to a definite misde- meanor." The law requires no more to make a deed a misdemeanor, and should one demand, as some think should be demanded in re- gard to medical abortion, that the law should exact more requisites for a misdemeanor, this can not do away with the fact that under present circumstances no more are exacted. ”

“ To what lengths we shall come if one may pit against principles of morality one's so-called practical sense, one's expediency, may be inferred from the very elastic definition of medical abortion given by Prof. Treub himself : " By artificial abortion is meant the breaking off of pregnancy, done for good reasons, before the fetus is viable, consequently before the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy. ”

“ If eventually the judge makes, and must make, allowance for mental confusion in such bewildering emergencies, this does not prove that what has been done was done with correct judgment, or that the action left unpunished, or, for the nonce, held unpunishable, accords with reason and ethics. Penal law is not per se also ethics, especially nowadays, when, according to many schools of juris- prudence, " legality " and morality are completely divorced. ”

“ The life of the child is not considered here, and the general inducement for procuring such abortion are the dangers which, in consequence of pregnancy, threaten the health or the life of the mother, and for which there is no other remedy, or for which the woman refuses to take other remedies."* I took the liberty of emphasizing the words containing the doctrine that either the life of the child is held venal or that the end readily justifies the means. ”

“ The thought just expressed God's absolute and exclusive do- minion over all human life involves the great principle underlying the Holy Office's decisions, which Prof. Treub impugns. Because of this principle, it is a crime to cause or bring about abortion, it being equivalent to the direct taking of an innocent human life,*
It matters not that there is not so far a complete unanimity in the answer to the speculative question whether the fetus has a rational soul at the very moment of conception or only after a certain stage of develop- ment. ”

“ That our readers may judge for themselves who, according to Dutch law, are really Moloch-worshippers, i. e., sacrificers of chil- dren's lives, I here quote the statute in full. In title xix. of the Penal Code, under the heading Misdemeanors Against Human Life* we find:
Art. 295. The woman who designedly causes abortion, or the fetus' death, or allows such to be caused, shall be punished with imprisonment not to exceed three years.
Art. 296. He who deliberately causes abortion, or the fetus" death, without the mother's consent, shall be punished with imprisonment not to exceed twelve years. ”

“ A medical operation, forsooth, has not the nature of mal- practice, and is altogether different from the misdemeanor of that name. Not so with abortion. Even though it is produced with a view of saving the mother's life, it assumes the character of that deed which is described in the law as a misdemeanor against life, viz., against the fetus' life.
Lastly, Mr. Noyon thinks he can find justification for abortion in desperate emergencies. In fact, Article 40 of the Penal Code says : " Whoever commits a deed to which he is driven by superior force is not punishable." ”

“ The two rights do not clash as long as the drowning man leaves the other one unmolested ; their rights come into collision, however, through the natural, to them fatal, course of events ; shipwreck, light- ness of the plank, absence of another means of salvation. ”

“ The fetus no more attacks the mother's life than the mother the child's. Neither of them does aught resembling the just men- tioned attack of the insane man. The latter really attacks, really wrongs the one whose life he threatens, is indeed an agent through whose act a right is injured. It is altogether different with t lie- mother and fetus in our case. ”

“ As regards the bestowal of baptism, the answer is given above. The rule " One may not do evil that there may come good " ex- tends even to the great boon of baptism. Murder is intrinsically evil, is forbidden by the Author of Nature's law, is a crime. Now, God
who forbids murder, and thus also forbade abortion, can not void ”

“ Needless to say that the fetus, being without consciousness, does not inflict a formal or voluntary injury. That is why we prefer the example of an insane man who, while attacking one's life, really and mateiially invades one's right to live, though his act is not voluntary, and, therefore, not formally wrong. ”

“ To appeal to the sentiment of the population will, for many rea- sons, help but little, chiefly so because the bulk of our people still believe that the dominion over the unborn man's life and death be- longs altogether and exclusively to the true and living God, and not to Aesculapius, the imaginary god of medicine. ”

“ The child has not done anything wilful whatsoever to constitute itself a menace to the mother's life. Hence there can absolutely be no question of an unjust attack. In most cases* the obstacle to de- livery lies with the mother, e. g., narrowness of the pelvis, etc. Con- sequently if through an act of the mother's will, cohabitation, the child has, without its cooperation, been placed in the mother's womb ; if, afterward, by the mother's act efforts are made to remove the child from the womb ”

“ However absurd it may seem, it is a fact that Prof. Treub desires to punish those who, by opposing medical abortion, strive to hinder a deed set down as punishable by law! The professor puts forth in the following words a remarkable pretension : " Should the Dutch
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THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF THE UNBORN CHILD.
legislature refuse to acknowledge that the law is equally binding for every citizen, and thus admit that a certain group of them are free to set the decree emanating from Rome above the Dutch law, then the Penal Code must needs be amended." ”

“ PROF. H. TREUB AS PENAL LEGISLATOR.
by pointing out a duty of conscience causes injury. In reality, he neither causes nor hinders it; he leaves the patient entirely to her conscience; she is, apart from her conscience, quite free to deviate from the advice given. Where is the connecting link be- tween the clergyman's act and the woman's death?
For in so far as the clergyman might be said to be fault of the woman's death, his act can not be called a fault in the strict judicial sense, but would have to be looked upon as design. ”

“ According to this view, in keeping with which he lays down his moral principles concerning the punishableness of abortion, (i) the fact that the end of cohabitation has been attained can not of itself be some- thing punishable, because the right to cohabitation, as an act by which the bent of nature is satisfied, stands altogether by itself. And, as far as that is concerned, the preservation of the race is not to be reckoned with. (2.) The not yet viable fetus can not be considered as a man, but merely as a con- glomeration ; of cells, whkh "has no objective right to live. ”

“ Herein not only the Church, but also sound philosophy,f discerns an immutable standard of right and wrong, a law as un- changeable as the eternal and infinitely wise plan according to which it has been given ”

“ Treub puts the question whether the Dutch lawmaker will allow a
The Holy Office is a judicial college of ten cardinals who, under the personal presidency of the Pope, issue final decisions in questions bearing on Christian faith and morals. This college is assisted by some thirty consultors of different nationalities ”