[To THE EDITOE 011 TAD " SrscrATor.."]
have read with much interest an article entitled "The Women's Charter" in the last number of the Spectator.
I entirely agree with your disapproval therein expressed of Lady McLaren's proposal that a woman should be allowed to kill her first illegitimate child within a month of its birth under no more severe penalty than two years' imprisonment. But may I point out that under the present law every mother in the land (not the unmarried ones alone) enjoys all, and much snore than all, the liberty demanded for them by Lady McLaren in the matter of destroying their superfluous children? There is no troublesome age-limit, no restriction to the first child only. Any mother can get rid of her baby by the simple process of smothering it in bed, "overlaying" it, and the law holds her guiltless, provided only that she be sober at the time of the occurrence.
If it can be proved that she was drunk at the time, she can be punished, though even then the penalty is not a heavy one. But if she was sober and in possession of her faculties, she has done nothing illegal. A recent prosecu- tion by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has proved that this is the actual state of the law at the present moment, and the Society has protested in vain.
You say in your article:—
" We have never adopted the plea that women are constitu- tionally incapable of wise political action, or by- nature unable to
do justice and maintain right We are bound to say, however, that it is difficult to read Lady McLaren's 'The Women's Charter' without having this view temporarily shaken."
I have nothing to say on this score in defence of Lady McLaren, except that she is at least clear-headed enough to
see that her proposed measure will work (as she intends it to do) for the protection of the mother who wishes to kill her child, and consistent enough to describe it accordingly as "The Women's Charter"; whereas the masculine intellects responsible for the present astonishing law have labelled it "The Children Act," and ask us to welcome it as a measure for the protection of infant life !—I am, Sir, &c.,
The Woodhouse, Cheadle, Stale. Lucre WEDGWOOD.
P.5.—The number of children under one year killed in this way in the past year was fourteen hundred and thirty-three.
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