Surrogate

“ It is true a large discretion is given to the surrogate to secure a competent person, and if relatives are disqualified, for certain causes mentioned in the statute, or are unwilling to accept, administration may be granted to others, and, in such a case, the basis of action concludes nothing as to the right of succession. ”

“ Prohibition against carrying on relevant activity except pursuant to licence
No person shall carry on a relevant activity except pursuant to a licence.
14. Prohibition against using donated gametes in surrogacy arrangement
Without prejudice to the operation of the Parent and Child Ordinance (Cap. 429) , no person shall, for the purposes of a surrogacy arrangement, use gametes other than the gametes of 2 persons who are—
(a) the parties to a marriage; and (b) the persons referred to in paragraph (a) (ii) of the definition of “surrogate mother” in so far as that arrangement is concerned. ”

“ Let us, for the sake of illustration, suppose the following case:—A woman loses her husband suddenly, tenant in tail male, a month after marriage, and at a little more than eight months after his decease she is delivered of a perfect female child, and at nine months, she declares that she is delivered of another infant, which is a male. The heir at law, who has entered, contests the fact of this latter birth; the question therefore to be determined is, whether such an event is compatible with the known laws of utero-gestation. ”

“ Impotence and sterility may arise from organic or from functional causes, and may be curable or incurable. Impotence (q.v.) is taken cognisance of by the law courts as a ground of divorce, and might, of course, be urged as a defence in a case of rape. Sterility is not a ground of divorce, but might be a question of importance in cases of legitimacy.
6. Pregnancy.—This subject presents one of the widest fields for medico-legal evidence. The limits of age between which it is possible, the limits of utero-gestation, and the signs of pregnancy may all in turn be the subjects of investigation. ”

“ Every person who shall administer to any woman pregnant with a quick child, any medicine, drug, or substance whatever, or shall use or employ any instrument, or other means, with intent thereby to destroy such child, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, shall, in case the death of such child or of such mother be thereby produced, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than twenty years, nor less than one year. ”

“ But since the most significant consequences of the decision are not medical in character, it would seem to me that the State may, with equal legitimacy, insist that the decision be made only after other appropriate counsel has been had as well. Whatever choice a pregnant young woman makes -- to marry, to abort, to bear her child out of wedlock -- the consequences of her decision may have a profound impact on her entire future life. ”

“ Independent of its obvious importance in determining questions of legitimacy, it may often be important to determine the longest period of utero-gestation, for the purpose of ascertaining a child’s right to property. A child in ventre sa mere is capable of taking by bequest or devise, even from the earliest period after conception; in which point our civil is more merciful, and more consonant to the course of nature, than our criminal law, which regards only the time of quickening. ”

“ For all others beside the physician there can be no allowable excuse except, in the mother’s case, insanity; which, however common in the true puerperal state, and often no doubt then showing itself by infanticide, has in early pregnancy, and to any extent, still to be observed. Other pleas as offered by the mother, ignorance of pregnancy or of fœtal life, duress, personal health or that of her family, accident, carelessness, fear of child-bed, malpractice on part of the attendant, we have already considered at sufficient length. ”

“ One of the most enlightened countries in Europe has, in view of the facts in reference to the extreme [Pg 205] limits of pregnancy, enacted, in the Code Napoléon, that a child born within three hundred days after the departure or death of the husband, or one hundred and eighty days after marriage, shall be considered legitimate. The law further states that a child born after more than three hundred days shall not be necessarily declared a bastard, but its legitimacy may be contested. ”

“ The patient or parties interested are proved by the attempt to have supposed pregnancy existing, and to have behaved as though this were the fact.
The age of the patient is not of consequence; nor is that of the fœtus, save as corresponding with the alleged period of pregnancy, in case any doubt exist as to its own identity or that of the mother, and as bearing on the statement we have already attempted to prove, that criminal abortion [50] is comparatively rare after the period of quickening, and, therefore, on the probability of intent. ”

“ The Vagaries of Pregnancy.—Certain foolish, old-fashioned ideas, have crept into the minds of impressionable people regarding pregnancy, which are aptly termed vagaries. It is believed by some that if the pregnant woman is the victim of fright, or is badly scared, or witnesses a terrifying or tragic sight, her child will be, in some way, affected by it. If the incident is not of sufficient gravity to cause an abortion or a miscarriage it will not, in any way mark, or affect the shape of the child in the womb. ”

“ Where conception has occurred in a married woman, it may be fear for the future of the child, of a lowering of the standard of life of the family, or of the act of parturition, which leads to the practice of abortion; where the pregnant woman is unmarried, fears as to the future of mother and child may also be operative, but the principal motives are the dread of disgrace and the desire to conceal the fact that [259] pregnancy has occurred. ”

“ Childbirth in Unmarried Mothers.—When a married woman is about to become a mother, she makes early preparation of all that will be required during childbirth and the lying-in period. A large proportion of unmarried mothers, on the other hand, spend their last penny before the termination of pregnancy, and are altogether destitute when the time of their delivery arrives. A sense of shame prevents many pregnant women from entering a lying-in hospital, although to do this would provide them with free medical aid. ”

“ A WRONG TO THE MOTHER AND CHILD.—Sometimes the mother is diseased; the outlet from the womb, as a result of laceration by a previous child-birth, is frequently enlarged, thus allowing conception to take place very readily, and hence she has children in rapid succession. Besides the wrong to the mother in having children in such rapid succession, it is a great injustice to the babe in the womb and the one at the breast that they should follow each other so quickly that one is conceived while the other is nursing. ”

“ Doctors are not likely to use the word miscarriage, but will describe as an abortion a termination of pregnancy which occurs before the end of the seventh month and as premature labors those occurring from that time until the expected date of confinement. In the minds of lay people, however, the term abortion is often associated with criminal practice, miscarriage being a term loosely applied to all births occurring before the seventh month, while the premature baby is the one born after the seventh month of pregnancy but before the expected date of confinement. ”

“ We recognize, of course, that when a woman, with the approval of her physician but without the approval of her husband, decides to terminate her pregnancy, it could be said that she is acting unilaterally. ”

“ Not only do women become sterile in consequence of a miscarriage, and then, longing for offspring, find themselves permanently incapacitated for conception, but, in other cases, impregnation, or rather the attachment of the ovum to the uterus, being but imperfectly effected, or the mother's system being so insidiously undermined, the children that are subsequently brought forth are unhealthy, deformed, or diseased. ”

“ We shall therefore pass over the question without farther discussion, and proceed to the investigation of those practical parts of the subject, which are highly interesting on account of their numerous and important relations to medical jurisprudence; we propose, therefore, to discuss the following questions in succession:
1. Whether a woman can be delivered during a state of insensibility, and remain unconscious of the event?
2422. How far the term of utero-gestation can be shortened, to be compatible with the life of the offspring? ”

“ As to population, there are in civil jurisprudence such rules, as that the husband may hold the lands of his deceased wife during his life, if before her death a living child was born, but not otherwise ”

“ Whatever ideas on the subject of abortion the human mind may have forced itself to entertain, let the slightest proof concerning the existence of fœtal life be alleged, and maternal instinct at once makes itself known: the parent, as after its birth, would often even perish to preserve her child. ”

“ Abortion is fearfully frequent, even more so than Dr. [Pg 150] Storer has assumed, and is rapidly increasing. One great reason of the aversion to child-bearing is the thousand disagreeable and painful experiences which attend the long months of patient waiting, and the certain agony at the end—agony which is akin to nothing else on earth—agony which the tenderest susceptibilities and sympathies of the noblest physician can but faintly imagine—agony which, in not one case in a hundred, is mitigated by anæsthesia. ”

“ How terribly ironic that an unborn child in one medical facility may be carefully treated as a patient while at another facility—perhaps just a few blocks away—another unborn child will become the innocent victim of abortion. ”

“ Abortion, or miscarriage, is often, as you know, gentlemen, the result of natural causes beyond human control; at other times it is brought on by unintentional imprudence on the part of the mother or her attendants. It is the duty of the family physician, when occasions offer, to in struct his pregnant patients and other persons concerned on the dangers to be avoided. A good Doctor should be to his patients what a father is to his children ”

“ Disease of the uterus and ovarian dropsy may be mistaken for pregnancy. Careful examination is necessary to determine the nature of the condition present. Pregnancy may be pleaded in bar of immediate capital punishment, in which case the woman must be shown to be 'quick with child.' A woman may also plead pregnancy to delay her trial in Scotland, and both in England and Scotland, in civil cases, to produce a successor to estates, to increase damages for seduction, in compensation cases where a husband has been killed, to obtain increased damages, etc. ”

“ The fact, therefore, is now scientifically established that the embryo from the first moment of conception or fecundation is a human being, having a human immortal soul.
II. Now we come to the direct study of abortion. Abortion, or miscarriage, strictly means the expulsion of the fœtus before it is viable, i.e., before it is sufficiently developed to continue its life outside of the maternal womb. The period of arrival at viability is usually after the twenty-eighth week of gestation. ”

“ I have known a woman bear a living child, in a perfectly natural way, fourteen days later than nine calendar months, and believe two women to have been delivered of a child alive, in a natural way, above ten calendar months from the hour of conception.
a_219 [What follows is an extract from Sande’s Decisiones Frisicæ, being his report of the case, which in the preceding article is referred to as a decision by the supreme court of Friesland in 1634, for the legitimacy of a child born in the twelfth month after the husband’s death. It is taken from the fourth book, title 8, definition 10.] ”

“ No partial birth abortion shall be performed in this state, unless such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. ”

“ We have shown reason to suppose that we equal them in guilt, if we do not exceed them. Now it must be borne in mind that the French are Catholic; that the rules of that church do not, as has been generally supposed, permit abortion in the earlier months, [99] but that they rigidly exercise over fœtal life throughout pregnancy the most absolute guard and supervision; [100] instances of this in cases where craniotomy is supposed to be indicated, are familiar to every practitioner. ”

“ Penalty of substituting one infant for another § 194. If a man has given his son to a wet-nurse to suckle, and that son has died in the hands of the nurse, and the nurse, without consent of the child's father or mother, has nursed another child, they shall prosecute her; because she has nursed another child, without consent of the father or mother, her breasts shall be cut off. ”

“ Abortion or miscarriage, which usually is accidental, sometimes becomes habitual; and at about the same period of conception, on many successive occasions, this disappointment will happen.
If there is a strong claim in the ordinary occurrences of pregnancy, for an attentive regard to the condition of mind as well as [Pg 33] body, it acquires its utmost urgency in those conditions in which habitual miscarriage happens. ”