ABORTION
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Your correspondent, Mrs. Geraldine Mozley, stigmatizes all abortion -as " murder." To some of us that term would seem to apply more fitly to the recent death at. Bray near Reading, of a poor woman after her fifteenth experience of childbirth. Compulsion to such tragic mockery of motherhood is a form of social murder which women have begun to resist.
Our country has definitely accepted contraception. Is it realized, however, that facilities for contraception are often inadequate, sometimes unattainable, and always—to some degree—uncertain ? Only 62 local authorities have imple- mented—or -declared their • intention of. implementing—. the " permissive " circular issued by the Ministry of Health in July, 1930. (Memo. 158, Mother and Child Welfare.)
Is it any 'wonder that the maternal death-rate still rises ? And yet the Council of the British Medical Association reports in favour of shelving the proposed medico-legal enquiry into the subject of abortion, which the Association and Assembly demanded—two years ago.—I am, Sir, &c., FEMINIST.
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