Abortion

At the indirect instance of President Hoover and the immediate request of the Child Welfare Conference (TIME, Jan. 26 et ante), Professor Frederick Joseph Taussig brought his life-long study of abortions up to date. Last week Dr. Taussig, clinical professor of gynecology and professor of clinical obstetrics at Washington University (St. Louis), completed publishing in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology* the facts which President Hoover wanted to know. Those who want or need abortions performed can get no information in the Taussig report on ways of accomplishing the operation, nor of doctors or midwives who will perform one. The report merely gives some statistics, refers to deaths from abortions, gives some advice. Its summary:

P:700.000 abortions in the U. S. yearly. An estimate, but no exaggeration. Number increasing each decade. P:Increase caused by decreased deaths among babies, by the changing social and economic status of women (freedom from conventions, working at all occupations), by Depression.

P:Increase noted primarily among married women who have three or more children.

P:Laws against abortion have not prevented the practice.

P:Birth Control may produce a factor in reducing illicit abortions (therapeutic abortions to save the woman's life or protect her health are legal practically everywhere), especially if more reliable contraceptive measures are discovered. (Recommended by the 80 authentic Birth Control clinics in the U. S. as nearest to perfection is the late Dr. James Fryer Cooper's combination of jell & dam. Production cost of the preparations is trifling. But like everything in the U. S. which has to do with sex, the retail cost is high. Clinics charge $1.25 for the dam, 75-c- for the jell. Drugstores charge $10 for the dam, $1.25 for the jell.) P:Some 15,000 U. S. women die yearly from abortion. Maternal deaths from abortion blood poisoning (puerperal sepsis) are seven times as frequent as the deaths from blood poisoning after childbirth.

P:Russia has legalized abortions. Operations are performed openly in hospitals by expert technicians. Russia's maternal mortality is now definitely lower. P:Very few doctors can escape being begged to perform abortions some time during their careers. Many furtively accommodate the suppliants. But their technique is unsure. Medical schools should teach their students just how best to do an abortion, whether or not they intend to use the knowledge.

P:Religion & politics should not prevent the proper study of the abortion problem. P:The $400 Federal income tax exemption for each child should be increased. The Government might thus help alleviate the burdens of parenthood, would remove an inducement to abortion. P: Women should be told that interference with pregnancy, even in its earliest stages, is not the harmless procedure they seem to consider it to be, but is a procedure inevitably associated with considerable risk to life and especially to future health.

*Of which Dr. Hugo Ehrenfest is associate editor. Drs. Ehrenfest & Taussig share the same professional offices in St. Louis. At Washington University Dr. Ehrenfest is an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics, Dr. Taussig's junior. Dr. Ehrenfest is chairman of the President's child welfare conference sub-committee for which Dr. Taussig made the current report.

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