This conduct requires four conditions: 1. That we do not wish the evil itself, but make all reasonable effort to avoid it. 2. That the immediate effect we wish to produce is good in itself. 3. That the good effect intended is at least as important as the evil effect permitted. 4. That the evil is not made a means used to obtain the good effect. Now let us apply these principles to the case in hand. 1. If the medicine is necessary to save the mother's life, and it is not certain to bring on abortion, though it is likely to do so, then the good effect is greater and more immediate or direct than the bad effect; then give the medicine to save the mother, and permit the probable death of the child. 2. If the medicine is not necessary to save the mother's life, though very useful, for the sake of such an advantage, you cannot justly expose the child's life to serious danger. 3. But if the danger it is exposed to is not serious but slight, and the remedy, though not necessary, is expected to be very useful to the mother, you may then administer the medicine; for a slight risk need not prevent a prudent man from striving to obtain very good results. 4. But what if the drug is necessary to save the mother, and as dangerous to the child as it is beneficial to her; can you then give the medicine with the moral certainty that it will save her and kill her child? When we know principles clearly we can apply them boldly. I answer then with this important distinction: you can give such medicine as will act on her system, her organs, in a manner to save her life, and you may permit the sad effects which will indirectly affect the child; but you cannot injure the child directly as a means to benefit her indirectly; that would be using a bad means to obtain a good end. Suppose, then, what is said to be a real case of occasional recurrence in obstetrical practice, namely, that a pregnant mother is seized with violent and unceasing attacks of vomiting, so that she must die if the vomiting be not stopped; and you, as well as the consulting physician called in, can discover no means of relieving the vomiting except by procuring an abortion, by relieving the womb of its living burden. Abortion is then the means used to stop the vomiting. Are you justified in using that means? Abortion is the dislodging of the child from the only place where it can live and where nature has placed it for that purpose. Therefore abortion directly kills the child, as truly as plunging a man under water kills the man. Can you thus kill the child to save the mother? You _cannot_. Neither in this case nor in any other case can you do evil that good may come of it.