Wrong, Dennis H.

English

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Buffalo Law Review Volume 7 Number 3 Article 15 4-1-1958 The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. By Glanville Williams. Dennis H. Wrong Brown University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview  Part of the Criminal Law Commons Recommended Citation Dennis H. Wrong, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. By Glanville Williams., 7 Buff. L. Rev. 526 (1958). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol7/iss3/15 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact lawscholar@buffalo.edu. BUFFALO-LAW REVIEWthe duties of the surveyor and the writing of deeds are subject, in part, to thesame criticism, although they are arguably more closely related to the subjectof boundary location.Mr. Brown states that the forerunner of this book was Boundary Control forSurveyors in California."0 The present book although in many respects worth-while, will not satisfy thd needs of many real estate practitioners simple becauseit was not written with adequate consideration of their interests. Even so, the presentbook is, in some respects, worthwhile and, if its substantial shortcomings arerecognized, belongs on the shelf of lawyers engaged in real estate practice. If theauthor would revise this book by focusing all his attention on boundary determina-tion, while at the same time going into more detaail on the authority for thepropositions which he states with a great deal of certainty, such an effort could bea much more valuable contribution to the literature in this field.DOUGLAS G. BOSHKOFFTeaching FellowHarvard Law School.THE SANCTITY OF LIF. AND THE CRMimNAL LAW. By Glanville Williams:Alfred A. Knopf, Co., 1957.This book deserves a wide audience among lawyers, doctors, social scientistsand all who are concerned with those highly controversial areas in which moralconvictions pertaining to the creation and preservation of human life impingeupon the criminal law. The author, a prominent British jurist, discusses in detailand with considerable erudition the legal and moral norms governing infanticide,birth control, sterilization, artificial insemination, abortion, suicide, and euthanasia.The substance of the book was originally delivered as. a series of lectures atColumbia University and before the Association of the Bar of the City of NewYork.Mr. Williams shows a command not only of the legal and medical literaturedealing with these problems but also of the theological literature, for the originsof the relevant statutes and the strong resistance to changing them can only beunderstood with reference to the positions taken by the spokesmen of officialChristianity, both Roman and Catholic and Protestant. Mr. Williams does nothesitate to state dearly his own position: on all of the issues he discusses he is infavor of modifying existing English and American law or its administration inthe direction of granting greater liberty of choice to individuals. The book is,10. P. ix.BOOK REVIEWStherefore, both an exploration of the scope of the problems and a series ofproposals for their resolution.Mr. Williams would, in recognition of the probable mental state of the mother,like to see "a greater exercise of the discretion of prosecuting to refrain fromprosecuting' in cases where mothers are charged with killing their new-borninfants. In the chapter on contraception, a subject less relevant to legal considera-tions in the English-speaking countries than the others he discusses, Mr. Williamsadopts a neo-Malthusian position and critically reviews religious opposition tobirth control in light of contemporary world population problems. He is infavor of legalizing voluntary qterilization, artificial insemination, abortion, andeuthanasia. He would like to remove all legal prohibitions of suicide. In all ofthese cases he critically examines and rejects the arguments of those opposed tothe changes he favors, both those that are based on secular considerations andthose that are held on theological grounds. He is fully aware of the necessity ofrecognizing subtle distinction which the law must take into account and hisspecific proposals for legal reform attempt to do justice to the necessities ofprotection against abuses which are often emphasized by the opponents ofchange.To give one example: in the case of euthanasia Mr. Williams opposes the1936 English bill (defeated in the House of Lords) which proposed to legalizevoluntary euthanasia under appropriate controls and suggests instead a law which"would provide that no medical practitioner should be guilty of an offence inrespect of an act done intentionally to accelerate the death of a patient who isseriously ill, unless it is provided that the act was not done in good faith with theconsent of the patient and for the purpose of saving him from severe pain in anillness believed to be of an incurable and fatal character." Such a law, he argues,would put the burden of proof on the prosecution to show that aphysidan actedfrom other than humanitarian motives, but would avoid the controversial stepof legalizing euthanasia as such.Since I am in basic agreement with Mr. Williams' point of view, I find hisarguments generally persuasive. It would be too much to hope, however, that hisbook will convince thoe who adopt absofutist moral or theological positions.Nevertheless, even for tlhem the book has the virtue of discriminating clearlybetween secular and religious arguments and of stating the relevant medical-sociological considerations with exemplary clarity and precision. For lawyers,his deft exposure of the absurdities and contradictions in present Anglo-Americanlaw should be of primary interest He is careful throughout to distinguish betweenthe quite separate issues of the morality or immorality of abortion, euthanasia,etc. and the desirability of legally enforcing traditional, religiously groundedprescriptions and prohibitions governing these areas of conduct. The weight ofBUFFALO LAW REVIEWhis argument is at all times directed against legal enforcement, although, he doesnot, as I have previously indicated, hesitate to make his own moral standpointexplicit.There are a few places where his arguments and evidence are less thanconvincing. In the chapter on birth control and population problems he relieson some authorities who, while they cannot be quite classified as questionable,do not nevertheless represent majority opinion in ,these fields. His discussionof differential fertility--the differences between the birth rates of the upper andlower classes-is not entirely up to date and he makes far too much of theargument that differential fertility is dangerously dysgenic, that is, that itinevitably lowers the hereditary quality of the population. At one point hecites evidence supporting the dysgenic hypothesis from the most extensive studyof family size in relation to intelligence that has yet been conducted but failsto cite contradictory evidence from the same study. He also repeats certainpopular and scholarly misinterpretations of what Malthus said and advocated.In the chapter on euthanasia he ignores what might be called the "argumentfrom Hider" against its legalization. Not that I regard this argument as conclu-sive or even very weighty, but both proponents and opponents of euthanasiaseem to be quite ignorant of the facts concerning the relationship betweenmedical euthanasia in Germany and the genocide practiced by the Nazis inEastern Europe. In 1941 the Nazis instituted a program of compulsory euthanasiaof mental patients and the indigent aged. Public opinion became so aroused inopposition to it that it was abandoned, the one recorded instance of publicpressure forcing Nazi totalitarianism to give ground. But when Hitler decidedon the "final solution of the Jewish problem," it was the very doctors who hadpreviously advocated and administered the euthanasia program who were sent tothe Eastern Front to install the gas chambers in the death camps. Furtherdiscussion of Soviet policies in this area would also have added to the value ofMr. William's excellent book.DENNIs H. WRONGDepartment of SociologyBrown University

The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. By Glanville Williams.

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The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. By Glanville Williams.

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