Mears, J. Gerard

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 10 | Number 3 Article 8July 1942In Fear and in Secret They Do Damnable DeedsJ. Gerard MearsFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationMears, J. Gerard (1942) "In Fear and in Secret They Do Damnable Deeds," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 8.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol10/iss3/8THE LINAORE QUARTERLY IN _fEAR ~~p IN -SECRET THEY DO DAMNABLE DEEQS* . ,. ·: (; ' '' ' ~·~>-" By J. GERARD MEARS A1180CIATB Emroa Of "AIIlEaJCA" . ' . t · " ~. ' Grimmest of epitaphs is ' the laconic eptry in hospital files, whep a body is assigned to the '"prgu~ : Upknown White; D.O.A. (deaq on arrival). They have loved jl.nd beeq ' loved, known joy and .sorrow bqt now, at the end, they 1\re dispqsed of with a cold imper&onality, It is a sad and lonely way to ~et out of the world. It \s j!VeT! a Jl10re cruel way to come into the world. And yet, to an extent ~hat shocks even a pagan conscience, uncounted thousands of human beings, created by God but UflW&nted by their parents, are being murdered as they are wrencped into this world by crim-inal ·flbortionists. '!'he innocent victims are the saddest of all the legiops of tqe ''unknown; dead on arriv~l." ' ' tJuoughout the nation, Murder, . t l ·.'··:!' ... lqc. were small fry! · , ·:.,~ ·But there is hardly any popular ·· I clamor for the hunting down, ex- I ,:.1 'J ppsure and punishment of doctors . Some time ago there were vio- · lent reactions pf public opinion at the revelation& concerning a group of th~gs known as Murder, Inc. The fallousness of these killers, who wade a business out of mur-der afld who would brutally slay a mao for a fee, shocked the na-tiop. Relentless investigation and efficiept prosecution soon broke up Murder, Jnc., and quickly sent its poarq of directors and working force to the electric chair or be-hind pars. Compared to the abor-tionists now at work destroying countless innocent unborn children who ply this fiendish practice with impunity and amass fabulous for- · tunes. Sporadic raids on abortion miJls seem to satisfy the public that, the situation is well in hand and that everything possible is being done to stamp out the evil. Few people bother to follow up the cases and find out if those ar-rested were ever convicted. And yet out of one hundred cases re-. ported in a year to the police of one city, fifty were thrown out fot· la~k of sufficient evidence to make a prima facie case. Of the cases that reached the courts, only -~hree convictions were obtained. In order to stir up public in-dignation toward more vigorous prosecution of these so-called doc- · tprs, it is necessary to stress the \lnsavory facts about this ghastly commerce and bring to light the many difficulties in stamping it ~ut. Most of the material for this survey was obtained from A Pre-sentment on the ·Suppression of (]riminal Abortions from the office of the Attorney General of the State of New York. It presents the findings of a Special Grand Jpry which investigated the mat- -. ter for three years. The staff of • Reprin~ed from America, May 2, 1942, with kind permission of Editor. H1c Attorney General's office were r 64-J . ' ' ·, .r ,· i,. · ~ ' '. I K; .. !/, ,,. ·'. •; . ' '• •'· THE LINAORE QUARTER~Y most helpful in supplying addi-tional information. While tn1e Grand Jury's factual investigat1on was confined to · Greater New York City, it is easy to draw from , their findings a pic-ture of what is going on in other large citi~s and throughout the country. The situation is obvi-ously not a local one and, while figures of various authorities for New York City are astonishingly · large, the rstimated figures for the . whole couptry indicate that con-ditions ar~ more or less the same all over the country, especially in the large pities. Those "!;'ho venture estimates on the number of abortions annually in various sections of the country and in the nation as a whole, state . frankly tpat it is almost impos-sible to hilve anything approach- . ing scientific accuracy in their . statistics, . Due to the fact that patient, doctor anp in some cases, public officials, are in conspiracy to con-ceal the truth, any agency at-tempting t o make a report on the abortion :practice is confronted with a dearth of official statistics on the spbject. Estimates are based on personal statistics ac-quired by legitimate practitioners, by abortic1nists, by laymen and, in part, by the researches of govern-mental agencies. But even if the numbers ~~iven by authorities be looked up.on as "guesses", based on their findings, they indicate a terrible situation. "Many authorities," says the Grand Jury report, "regard the figure of 100,000 abortions annu-ally in the City of New York . as approximately accurate." 'fhat is 273+ per day. Doctor A. J. Rongy1 in his book, Abortion: Legal and IUegal, estimates that 250,000 abortions are performed per year in the City of New York. That would be about 685 a day. Frederick J. Taussig, in a learned study on the medical and social aspects of abortion, sets his own figures for the United States: "The figures arrived at, by the best means at our disposal, were 681,600 abortions (or 1,867 a day). . . . These figures are be-lieved to be minimum, and are based not upon direct observation but upon inferences from the only data available." Doctor \<Villiam Bickers, writ-ing in the Catholic Virginian, puts the annual national total at 550,000 (or 1,534+ a day) . These figures, he says, have been confirmed by the most careful scrutiny of hospital records and vital statistics. "Eight thou s and potential mothers," he adds, "pay with their )iyes each year for their par-ticipation in this most gruesome of all crimes. Countless others are rendered physically unfit and in-capable of normal reproduction :" Much more accurate than the estimates of the number of abor-tions are the figures on the aYer-age income of the abortionist since they are based on actual in-dividual confessions. The follow-ing paragraphs from the Grand Jury report furnishes an astound-[ 65 l / fHE LINACRE QUARTERLY ing revelatiop as to the princely w~~es o~ criwe : "4lthough there Is evidence that · feeil are as low as $10, in-duq\ng the anesthetic, they have been knpwq to go as high as $2,5()0. $500 for an abortion would not be uncommon. $250 is a frequent price. A considerable percentage of abortion patients are charged ~100 but the bulk of th!'! fees · ruq from about $50 to $60. "Yearly incomes of abortion speci11lists wquld be in the same numeric~} brackets with earnings of )leads of large corporations had they eyer been publicized. There is testimony that the abor-tion _specialist with a normal busi-ness averages about $25,000 a year, and that doctors whose cli-ent~le came from larger income groqps earned from $150,000 to $250,000 a year. '~An abortionist who charges $50 to $60 for an operation, after he h11s split the fee with the feeder and ded~cted running expenses, receives about $15 profit. As has been stated before, there are abor-tioQ specialists who perform about four thousaQq operations a year. Such a specialist would net about $60,000 11 year, even on a modest scale of fees. "One abortionist who had · been finaQcially successful in the busi-ness, built a house costing $165,000, referred to in the profession as 'the house that abortions built.' Another doc-tor, pne of the earliest · in the business, amassed approximately ~1,000,000 up until 1921. "One of the best known induc-~ion specialists (induction means the extremely dangerous removal of the fetus after a gestatory · . period of three months) of New Vork was reputed to have earned over $1,000,000. When ques- : tioned as to the truth of this re-port, he made no denial . . . an-other was charged with owing the · federal Government $850,000 in back taxes." These fortunes are left after fifty per cent of the fee is shared with the "feeder" (usually a drug-gist or fellow doctor), and, in many cases, protection money paid. The abortionist's secretary is frequently paid as high as $100, plus a share in the profits, as her shrewdness and loyalty are essen-tial. She meets the prospective patients and arranges the fee, after careful appraisal. In addi-tion, the business agent for the qoctor abortionist runs the office, {landles bills and salaries, splits fees and bribe money and is con-tact man between the abortionist and the sources from which busi-ness can be obtained. He works for a percentage of the net profits. Although convicted abortionists h3ve attempted to explain their lapse from medical ethical stand-vds by stating that they left medical school with high ideals which the world did not appreci-flte and were forced into illegal practice by sheer economic neces-sity-a glance at the above income sttttistics would indicate that the abortionist is lured by sheer ava-[ 66) THE LINACRE QUARTERLY I i rice. Why plod along saving life for a merp living when medical murder brjpgs such handsome re-wards? .And such an antiseptic ' and refine<l type of murder! A white coat, a curette and a brightly U~hted operating table r. · · instead of a mask, a dagger and F ! · a dark ro'l.d; public indifference 1 and social connivance instead of ' the hue aiJ.d cry. At worst, the i •( loss of a l jcense and professional i' prestige, ipstead of the noose or r·· the electriq chair. And no outcry from the human victim! It seems impossible that such a heinous commerce can thrive in a Christian--or even a civilized so-ciety. In many States there are penal statutes against criminal abortion a:pd many State Boards of Education are entrusted with the respon~ibility of taking disci-plinary aption against doctors who are offenders, but still the abomination continues, almost un-curbed. The factors which enable the business t~ flourish according to the report. of the Grand Jury, published py Special Prosecutor John Harlfln Amen, are: 1. Apatpy on the part of the public to the problem of abor-tions; 2. Lack of co-operation with public officials on the part of the woman whq seeks an abortion (she is also liable to prosecution under existing legislation) ; 3. Connjvance on the part of certain public officials with abor-tionists for the purpose of circum-venting the laws designed to con-trol the practice; and 4. Ineffective use of enforce-JOent machinery which is in itself partly defective. To these reasons must definitely l>e added the laxity of the mo<lern ~ocial conscience, regarding the tampering with life and death. God's dominion and His laws are not mentioned in discussing the problem. In fact, great pressure is brought to bear on legislative podies tQ abolish all Ia ws against ~bortion and thus "cheat the crim-inal abortionist." All abortions would then be "therapeutic" and hence legal and medically safer. It has been impossible, in the !lpace of one article, to ~ive proper considerations to many im-portant phases of this evil and its possible suppression. It has been necessary merely to hint at the great difficulty of exposing and prosecuting the illegal practi-tioner under present legislation p.nd the profitable connivance of unscrupulous public officials which was brought to light by the Grand· Jury investigation. But it is to pe hoped that the startling co11di-tions which are merely sketched here, will show the necess ity• of an awakened public conscience on this evil traffic which battens on human tragedy and frailty. For, as the presentment which has been quoted from so freely concludes : f'lt would be fatuous to deny or pverloo~ the fact that the effec-tiveness with which penal laws are enforced varies directly with the public determination that they phall be." [ 67) 

In Fear and in Secret They Do Damnable Deeds

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In Fear and in Secret They Do Damnable Deeds

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